Page:Restorative medicine - an Harveian annual oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on June 21, 1871 (the 210th anniversary) (IA restorativemedic00cham).pdf/28

14 RESTORATIVE MEDICINE. for something to cut short inflammation with, finds the nearest approach to such an end lies in replacing the loss of elasticity by pressure, by cold, by astringents; or by spurring up the contractile arteries to excrtion with nervine drugs. Among the latter he reports well of quinine, and finding that by its use the fever-heat is quickly lowered, he looks upon that high temperature as arising from diminished nervous control.

Morbid anatomists have also done much to shake the fixedness of our methods of healing, by finding evidence to show that what appcar superficially different forms of morbid products are in reality different grades. That which distinguishes them is a higher or lower degree of vitality, a more or less of the characters of living flesh. As an instance I may cite Gerber's classification of tubercle into (1) granular or unorganized; (2) cytoblastic, (3) cellular, (4) filamentous. Each form is a little higher than the other in the scale of resemblance to tissue.

This is no guide to prognosis, for the more highly organized growths may be the most destructive to neighboring parts-indeed in the case of cancer it would seem as if the danger were