Key advances in developing a definition of inflammation between 1st and 20th centuries ad
| Author, year | Quotation | Historical interpretation | Modern significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Celsus, 1st century ad | “rubor et tumor cum calore et dolore” | First documentation of cardinal signs of inflammation | Emphasised the importance of clinical observations rather than philosophy based medicine |
| Galen, 3rd century ad | “Laudable pus” | Infection and inflammation are beneficial to repair of wounds | Inflammation was seen as an expression of humoral theory well into the 19th century |
| Virchow, 1871 | “The inflammatory reaction is a consequence of an excessive intake by interstitial cells, of food...filtering through the vessel wall” | Inflammation as a pathological proliferation of cells due to leakage of nutrients from vessels | Recognised cellular nature of inflammatory response |
| Cohnheim, 1873 | “Finally...there lies outside the vessel...a colourless blood corpuscle.” | Blood corpuscles were seen as pathological mechanisms by which infections spread, secondary to vascular injury | First description of diapedesis |
| Metchnikoff, 1908 | “the primum movens of the inflammatory reaction is a digestive action...toward the noxious agent” | Inflammation as a defensive cellular response to pathogens, guided by the vessels rather than an aspect of the pathology itself | First to express the view that phagocytes were protective, not pathological |
| Lewis, 1927 | Inflammation as the “triple response” to injury | Inflammation is characterized by vascular events mediated both by local chemicals and by axons | First recognition of neurogenic inflammation; first physiological characterisation of vascular events |
| Rocha e Silva, 1974 | Inflammation as a “multi-mediated phenomenon, of a pattern type in which all mediators would come and go at the appropriate moment...increasing vascular permeability, attracting leucocytes, producing pain, local edema and necrosis” | Inflammation defined by mediators | Biochemical definition of inflammation |