Inflammation regarded as a physiological reaction to an infecting lesion : the oration of the Hunterian Society, delivered at the London Institution, February 11th, 1885 / by F. Charlewood Turner.

  • Turner, Francis Charlewood, 1843-1900.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inflammation regarded as a physiological reaction to an infecting lesion : the oration of the Hunterian Society, delivered at the London Institution, February 11th, 1885 / by F. Charlewood Turner. 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.

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    The conclusion here arrived at, that the atmospheric micrococci are the infective agents concerned in the occur- rence of inflammation, is in accordance with the views enunciated by Heuter. But all unprotected wounds being inoculated with atmospheric micrococci, and all the tissues being liable to invasion by them, one cannot •say with him, that the immigration of viable organisms of this kind into the tissues is the one true cause of inflammation. The presence of these organisms in the ftissues can only be spoken of as the cause of inflamma- :tion, in the especial sense in which gravity may be said :to be the cause of the fall of a body whose equilibrium has been disturbed. But just as the proper determining cause of such an accident is the agency by which the ■ state of equilibrium is disturbed, so those local influences, by which the nutritive equilibrium of the tissue is disturbed, and by which a condition of the damaged ipart affording the requisite nidus for the phlogogenic ! growth of the micrococci invading it, is ultimately or i* mainly brought about, are the proper determining causes I of the inflammation resulting from the mycotic growth. In wounds these conditions, in general, are afforded in the collection of exuded serum between the surfaces. And amongst the causes of traumatic inflammation may its contents, where their presence would still cause septic irritation. This was demonstrated by Ogston in his very complete research, in which he ■ showed that the number of micrococci in the pus in abscesses progressively decreases after the acme of the process, and that they are absent in conditions of quiescence. These observations of Watson Cheyne’s, therefore, afford no proof of the occurrence of suppuration in the absence of micro-organisms, and no evidence whatever of the occurrence of an infecting morbid lesion in the tissues {i.e. of a phlogogenic lesion as here understood) independently of them. 3