subsided—make their appearance around the
seat of injury. In short, inflammation would
take place, and would continue to exist for
some time. In the meanwhile, the hole would
gradually fill with new flesh, and would
ultimately skin over; and so the inflammation
would end. Take the case of a wound, instead
of a burn: let it be a cut finger. Here you
have inflammation occurring, too, to a smaller
extent, to be sure; but still it does occur;
and its occurrence is necessary to the healing
of the wound. A sort of living glue is poured
out on the cut surfaces. It is shed from the
mouths of minute blood-vessels, it joins the
divided parts, and, at length, becomes a firm,
fleshy substance; a live patch: what, in short,
we call a scar. The inflammation results in
forming this glue. Therefore we call it
adhesive inflammation. It is also called healthy
inflammation, to distinguish it from other
inflammations which do not end so favourably.
But, if this same inflammation happen in
parts important to life, as those contained in
the chest or abdomen, it is regarded as a
disease. So it is if it take place in the eye—
for instance, on the coloured part of the eye,
termed the iris, where the adhesive matter, if
poured out, might close the hole in the iris,
called the pupil, and thus blind the patient.
In fact, adhesive inflammation is disease in
its simplest form."

"Disease?" said Mr. Bagges; "but, if I
understand you, the tendency of the inflammation
is to heal."

"Precisely so; and in the simplest form of
disease we see a process, excited by injury,
the effect of which is to repair that injury.
But other processes, admitted on all hands to
be diseases, are as obviously remedial. The
voracious consumption of unripe fruit, you
know, Mr. Bagges, will afflict young gentlemen
with a painful ailment, which, however, is
evidently an effort of Nature to expel the
cause of irritation. Many cutaneous
eruptions are known to be salutary; and even a
fit of the gout, as you may have heard, sir, and
perhaps experienced, acts often as a kind of
clearance to the system. Indeed the nature
of all disease appears, so far as we can determine
it, to be, essentially, reaction against
injury. But this reaction may be too powerful,
or too weak; it may be impeded, or
perverted, or disturbed, or protracted, by a
variety of causes; and then our professional
interference, Mr. Bagges, becomes necessary."

"With your pills, and powders, and
draughts, and mixtures, et cetera?" interposed
Mr. Bagges.

"With means and appliances such as
you mention," said Mr. Newby, "and some
others. And for what purpose? We shall
see. Let us go back to the case of the cut
finger. The simple inflammation arising
from that injury requires no treatment
beyond what is barely protective. The finger
is merely bound up, and it heals; the inflammatory
process is confined to the wound, and
terminates of itself. But the inflammation
consequent on the wound may be more than
simple. The cut may fester instead of healing.
The inflammation may run up the arm, and,
in place of forming adhesive matter, pass
through various stages, which I need not
describe, except as dangerous and unpleasant.
What occasions the inflammatory process to
assume this character—that of what is termed
unhealthy inflammation? The circumstance,
we discover on inquiry to be, that there is
something wrong in the system: generally
that some organ, the office of which is to
purify it of refuse matter, is not doing its
duty. Medicine is given, or means are taken,
to make that organ perform its function;
and this object accomplished, the inflammation
subsides. The action of a few blue pills
and black draughts, for example, may be
sufficient to subdue it, and reduce it to the
simple form; and this quite independently of
any local treatment beyond enveloping the
limb in a pulp of bread and warm water."

"Commonly called a poultice," Mr. Bagges
supplied.

"Even so. Now, in the case just supposed,
the medicine, you see, Mr. Bagges, did not
directly stop the inflammation. It acted by
removing certain conditions—torpidity, we
will say, of the liver, and other organs therewith
connected—and then the inflammation
ceased. And by far the greater number of
diseases, sir, are to be cured by the mere
removal of these and similar conditions;
indeed, by no more than rectifying the digestive
apparatus, and causing its dependencies
to execute a sort of vital sewage and drainage.
Our most numerous bodily injuries are
inflicted by ourselves through excesses and
errors of diet. Mischief most frequently
enters the human body by the mouth. The
frame is thus overloaded with superfluities, or
tainted with impurities, and these are the
most general causes of disease, and they
aggravate and prolong diseases that originate
otherwise. This fact in part explains the
success of quack medicines. Most of these
compounds increase the action of the cleansing
organs. Out of a hundred patients taken
indiscriminately, a large per-centage would
probably derive relief from any medicine
having that action. So much testimony is
safe for Dr. Gullaway's pills. A few grains
of calomel and colocynth from the honest
druggist's would have answered better,
perhaps; but this is not known, or not
considered. Dr. Gullaway puffs and advertises
his successes—with additions and embellishments,
of course. Experience vouches for his
pills in some degree, and then Credulity
gulps them to any extent."

"Now disease," said Mr. Bagges, "according
to you, is—that is, in great measure—a
what?—a salutary effort of Nature. Well—
eh?—how do you make that out in diseases
that arise from too much eating and drinking?
Indigestion, for instance."