Report on the present state of knowledge of the nature of inflammation / by T. Wharton Jones.

  • Jones, Thomas Wharton, 1808-1891.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the present state of knowledge of the nature of inflammation / by T. Wharton Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    3/24 (page 3)
    NATURE OF INFLAMMATION. When a part of the body, visible externally, is the seat of inflammation, the observer perceives it to be preternatm-ally red, swollen, and preternaturally hot; the patient, moreover, says that he feels it hot and painful. The conditions on which these symptoms depend are, on the whole, sufficiently obvious; but the nature of theprocess which leads to them—in other words the theory of in- flammation—is very obscure, and has always been, and still is, an object of much debate and inquiry with pathologists. As it is microscopical parts which are immediately concerned in the inflamma- tory process, it is only since pathologists became acquainted, by means of the microscope, vvilh those parts and their mode of action, that any real advance has been made in the inquiry. The parts referred to are principally the corpuscles of the blood and the capillary ve.ssels. In entering, therefore, on the task of report- ing on the theory of inflammation, it will be useful to premise the following points regarding the blood and its circulation in the capillaries in the healthy state; ; I. BLOOD IN THE HEALTHY STATE. § 1. In human blood, after being drawn, the red corpuscles aggregate together like coins in rolls. This aggregation takes place in the course of half a minute or so after the blood is drawn, when the blood is in a healthy state, with its plasma of ordinary thickness; when, on the contrary, the blood'is not in the healthy state, but has a more inspissated plasma, the aggregation of the red corpuscles is so rapid that it is found to have already taken place by the time the blood can be transferred to the microscope and examined. _ § 2. The admixture of certain reagents with the blood influences the aggrega- tion. Some promote it, others prevent it; those which promote it, if anylhing, give rise to endosmose rather than to e.xosmose; among those which prevent it are found as well such as give rise to exosmose as those which give rise to endos- mose. It appears to be viscidity of the fluid fa certain proportion of salts beino- at the same time dissolved in it,) in which they are suspended, which especially promotes, though is not the cause of, the tendency to the aggregation of the red corpuscles. u § 3. In the newdy-drawn blood of the frog a sort of aggregation of the red corpuscles is also observed ; but instead of having their surfaces fully applied to each otlier, and being raised up on edge, as in human blood, the red corpuscles for the most part, he flat, and merely partially overlap each other, like the coins of a loll which has been thrown loosely down. The admixture of mucilage of gum with a little common salt in solution, which, in human blood, much augments ttiougli in an irregular and confused manner, the aggregation of the red cor- puscles has comparatively little effect on the blood of the frog. Henle states that white of egg causes the red corpuscles of frog’s blood to aggregate into heaps ; but this does not appear to be to any greater amount than when muci- lage of gum, with a little salt in solution, is the reagent employed. § 4. Though the red corpuscles of the blood of the frog have less disposition to aggreg^e than those of human blood, the colourless corpuscles appear to have more § 5 The red corpuscles of the blood of the frog, as seen circulating within the vessels of the web, do not show the nucleus, or that very indistinctly^; but when di-awn from the body, the presence of the nucleus is suffi- c ently evident. The immediate cause of this difference appears to be, that in linsif! red corpuscles are more distended, in the latter more col- lapsed. For the reason hat they are more collapsed after being drawn, the red the red corpuscles is c^incidLnt with the occuirence of the tendency to aggregate.