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What does the word inflammation mean?

• is so called in consequence of the acute or burning pain felt in a part affected with it. An irritation in a part of the body is occasioned by some stimulus; - owing to which the blood flows into the capillary vessels in greater abundance than natural, and those vessels become over-dilated and enfeebled; whence result pain, redness, heat, tension, and swelling: symptoms which appear in greater or less severity, according to the structure, vital properties, and functions of the part affected, and its connexion with other parts, as well as according to the constitution of the individual. Simple accumulation of blood in the capillaries of the part is hyperaemia, not inflammation. The latter requires, in addition, altered nutrition either of the vessels themselves, or of the surrounding tissues, or of both. The inflammations of the areolar and serous membranes greatly agree; - and those of the mucous and skin; the former being more active, and constituting the phlegmonous variety; - the latter, the erythematic or erysipelatous. Of this variety is the diffusive inflammation produced by morbid poisons, - as during dissection, where solutions of continuity exist on the fingers of the operator. It is seen, too, in workers in bone, and hence has been called bone fever. Preparatory to the turning of bones, it is customary to macerate them in water. The fluid soon becomes putrid, and if the hands be kept in it diffusive inflammation results. Inflammation may end by resolution, suppuration, gangrene, adhesion, effusion, or induration. Each of the inflammations of internal organs has received a name according to the organ affected; - as, gastritis, cephalitis, enteritis, hepatitis, etc. Besides the above inflammations, it has been considered, that there is an instinctive kind established for the union of parts which have been divided, whether the union takes place immediately, or by the aid of an intermediate body. This is the adhesive inflammation of some; but it may well be questioned whether inflammation is ever desirable in such cases. See Adhesion, Callus, Cicatrix. Broussais considered that the term inflammation should include every local exaltation of the organic movements which is sufficiently great to disturb the harmony of the functions, and disorganize the texture in which it is situate. He farther extended the name inflammation to irritations which do not induce disorganization of the textures, and which had been previously, and are still, called fevers. Examination of the blood drawn always exhibits an increase of the fibrinous elements- the average proportion of which, in healthy blood, is about three in the thousand. In inflammation, it at times rises as high as ten. In fevers unaccompanied with inflammation, the proportion is natural, or below the average; but whenever inflammation upervenes, it immediately rises. External inflammation is easily detected by the characters already mentioned: - internal, by disturbance of function and pain upon pressure; but the last sign is often not available. Both forms require the removal of all irritation, and the reduction of vascular excitement and nervous irritability; hence, blood-letting- local and general- sedatives, refrigerants, and counter-irritants become valuable remedies in almost all cases of inflammation. Inflammation is not always of the active kind. There is a form, Inflamma'tio deb'ilis, which occurs in low conditions of the system, and in broken down constitutions, which, like many forms of chronic inflammation, requires a stimulant, rather than a sedative, mode of treatment.

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