60 EFFECTS OF ACTIVE HYPERAMIA.
But it is rather with morbid bypersemia that we are concerned
as pathologists. This is, in a very great number of instances, the
commencement of inflammation; but we shall not speak of in-
flammation as one of its results, but consider it separately. Tho
effects of morbid hyperemia are gencrally unnatural excitement,
or oppression of an organ, The part contains more blood than it
is able to manage, its healthy play is interfered with, and it is
either goaded into @ false, atmloss, and exhausting activity, or is
actually oppressed and enfeebled directly. The chief features of
the condition are, probably, increased attraction of blood to the
part, with diminished yital change, and undue dilatation of the
arteries leading to it.
If the brain be the scat of determination of blood, in a morbid sense, there will be throbbing of the earotids, and their superficial branches, restlessness, more or less intolerance of light and sound, diminution of the power of attention and application, dreamy and disturbed sleep, irritability of temper, attacks of giddiness, &e. The face and eyes are apt to be flushod, and the fect cold. The uneasy sensations about the head are increased by stooping, or the recumbent posturo. The kidney, in cases of acute anasarca, manifests an excellent example of morbid hyperemia. If is en- larged and turgid with blood, but its texture is not apparently altered. Its secretion is scanty, loaded with albumen and witl fibrinous concretions, and epithelium of the tubes. No doubt can exist that its functional energy is gravely impaired. In active menorrhagia we have a third instance in which, from various vauses, a morbid hyperemia of a hollow organ lined by a secreting mucous membrance is induced, the results being pain and uneasi- noss In the region of the affected part, inercased sensation of heat, tension, and throbbing, which are relicyed by the discharge of a fluid more completely sanguineous than the natural secretion; in tact, by an almost real hemorrhage. In such an instance it is not only the mucous lining of the uterus that becomes hyperwmic, but the whole organ, with its thick muscular walls. Their tissue is loosened up and swollen by the quantity of blood admitted, so that the size of the organ is increased; and if this hyperemia should not in great degree subside, the result may be a permanent enlargement and congested state of the uterus, The foregoing examples, taken from different organs, will serve as sufficient illustrations of the effects of active hyperemia. It scems, how- eyer, desirable to allude, somewhat more in detail than has yet been done, to hemorrhage, flux, and dropsy, considered as results of hypersemia in general,
These may be regarded as the effusions of hyperemia, as dis- tinguished from inflammation. No doubt they do also occur in eases where inflammatory action is proceeding; but still they are not the special and charactoristic products of this state.
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