Infeftment.

instruction. In Germany, under the name of Kleinkinderschulen and Kindergärten, infant schools are numerous. In France, under the name of "Asylums," they are very widespread. See KINDERGARTEN. Infant schools, like other seminaries which are not purely professional in their aims, ought to keep in view the threefold nature of the child's mind, and appeal to its different faculties in turn. But while the intellect, the moral nature, and the imagination ought to receive their proper food, it has to be borne in mind that we contradict the laws of nature when we omit an element more powerful and exacting than any of these; we mean the physical, and that love of play, fun, and nonsense which is connected with it, and which is peculiar to infancy, and not unbecoming even the gravity of manhood. By marching, exercises, toys, and, above all, by the judicious use of a large open playground, full provision should be made for the muscular restlessness of children, and for their love of play. The room in which they are collected should be little more than a well-ordered, covered playground. In the playground, whether open or covered, order, obedience, kindness, consideration, civility, cleanliness, good-temper, are to be taught, and the moral objects of the infant school attained. Play, and the moral training which may be connected with it, should be the leading ideas of the place, and to these every. thing else should be subordinated. Next to this, the intellectual nature of the infant has to be considered, its future anticipated, and the elements of reading taught, but with the help of such methods and books as call for the minimum of mental exertion. An infant school which has cultivated the moral nature of its children through games and exercises, and has taught them to read easy monosyllabic sentences by the time they reach the age of six, has accomplished its work well. At the same time, other means of awakening interest and intelligence may be resorted to with advantage, but under this restriction, that if they fail to call forth spontaneous and unconscious attention, either through the want of skill on the part of the mistress to present them in an attractive form, or through some defect in the apparatus at the command of the mistress, they should at once be given up. We refer to songs of a moral or narrative kind-rhymes and nursery jingles-descriptions of cbjects and pictures by the children under the teacher's guidance (object-lessons)—the concealed purpose being to cultivate the perceptive faculties of form, color, number, size, etc.—and lessons in arithmetic on a ballframe. Then, again, the teacher may collect the children around her- and read to them fairy tales and simple stories of incident and the affections. All this may be and actually is attained; but the qualifications in the teacher for the attainment of them are rarely to be met with. So far as these qualifications are of a moral or imaginative kind, they are natural endowments; but they may receive enlightenment and direction by a judicious system of training. In the first report of the home and colonial school society, it is truly said, "that few situations in life require so much discretion, so much energy, so much tenderness, so much self-control and love, as that of a teacher of babes." Without a consciousness that she possesses these qualifications, especially the last-named, no woman should for a moment contemplate the career of an infant-school mistress.

The question still remains to be considered-whether infant schools are desirable at all, and whether the family hearth, and the fields, or the streets, do not constitute the best, because nature's infant school. The answer given by many would be that, were society in a healthy and normal condition, infant schools are hurtful even at the best, and that, when we bear in mind the chances of their being badly conducted, they may be generally denounced as a public nuisance. But we are not in a normal state; and while Infant schools proper are, perhaps, superfluous in rural parishes, they are in populous places a boon and a blessing, if not a necessity.

INFANZONA'DO, the name of a district in the Spanish province of Biscay, containing 72 villages. It is divided into the five merindades of Arratia, Bedia, Busturia, Marquina, and Uribe.

INFECTION is distinguished from contagion (q.v.) by some medical writers, who would restrict the latter word to the cases in which there must be contact of the healthy person with a patient, while they apply the term infectious to discases which can be conveyed by the atmosphere.

INFECTIOUS DISORDERS in cattle have been made the subject of special enactment, in order to protect the public from the calamities arising from the spread of disease in so important an article of food. The contagious diseases (animals) act 32 and 33 Vict. c. 70, authorizes inspectors to be appointed, who have power to enter cow-sheds and stables, and report if disease exists. Sometimes sound cattle require to be slaughtered, in which case half or three-fourths of the value are allowed by the county or borough rate to the owner. Penalties are imposed for turning out diseased cattle on uninclosed lands or in markets, for not purifying sheds, for not disinfecting railway cattle-trucks and steamboats. The owner is bound to give notice to the inspector of any symptoms of disease appearing; and the hay, straw, litter, or dung of infected animals cannot be lawfully removed except for the purpose of being destroyed, and with an inspector's license. The inspectors are appointed by the local authorities, and are removable by the privy council.

INFEFTMENT, or SASINE, a Scotch law-term, used to denote the symbolical giving possession of land, which was the completion of the title, the mere conveyance not

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In

being enough. The instrument of sasine was the notarial instrument embodying the fact of infeftment. But now the necessity of a separate formality is unnecessary, it being sufficient to register a conveyance in the register of sasines in Scotland. England there is no similar register for deeds, and the title is complete when the conveyance is executed and delivered to the purchaser. In Scotland an infeftment in security is a temporary infeftment to secure payment of some debt; and an infeftment of relief is a similar security to relieve a cautioner.

INFIDEL, a name generally applied to one who disbelieves the Bible as a divine revelation, but sometimes used also for a skeptic or doubter, and for him who calls himself a freethinker.

INFINITE. This word is the source of much controversy and difference of opinion. Some hold that there corresponds to infinity a distinct notion, which we are entitled to . entertain and reason about, with the same confidence that we discuss measured intervals, as a yard or mile; while others maintain that the word is a name for a mere negative. Šir W. Hamilton goes so far as to say, that "the infinite and the absolute are only the names for two counter-imbecilities of the human mind, transmitted into properties of the nature of things-of two subjective negatives converted into objective affirmatives" (Discussions, p. 21). And Mr. J. S. Mill holds a similar view. It had also been maintained by Locke that we have no positive idea of the infinite, that it was only the negative of an end or termination (Essay on the Understanding, book ii. chap. 17).

The notion of the infinite has, indeed, been admitted into mathematical reasoning, a circumstance that would seem to imply that we could use it with exactness, and, consequently, it could not be altogether an incompetence or imbecility of the understanding. It appears, however, that mathematicians use the word under peculiar restrictions. They employ it in the two extremes of the infinitely great and the infinitely little. "If we see a conclusion, which we can nearly attain by the use of a large magnitude, more nearly by the use of a larger, and so on without limit, that is to say, as nearly as we please, if we may use a magnitude as large as we please, but which is never absolutely attained by any magnitude however great, then such conclusion may be said, for abbreviation, to be absolutely true when the magnitude is infinite" (Penny Cyc., art. "Infinite"). The very same statement might be made regarding the infinitely small, which is represented in mathematics by the symbol for nothing, although it is not the same as nothing in the strictest sense, namely, the nothing caused by subtracting a quantity from itself, as two from two. It is nothing in this sense, that if added to a finite quantity, as 10, it produces no augmentation that can be made use of; the quantity for all purposes remains the same. The machinery of infinite quantities plays a large part in the operations of the higher mathematics, and is introduced in order to compare two things naturally incommensurate. Thus, in estimating the area of a curved surface, such as a circle, in straight-lined spaces, such as square inches, the difficulty was got over by a sort of fiction, namely, by supposing the circle to be inscribed by a right-lined figure or polygon, of such a very great number of sides that they coincide to all intents and purposes with the curved circumference. The coincidence can never be perfect; but by imagining the sides to be smaller and smaller, and, consequently, more and more numerous, the difference between the polygon and the circle may become less than any assignable quantity, or, as it may be said, infinitely little, in fact, as good as nothing, so that the estimate of the area of the one will stand for the estimate of the area of the other. This device for overcoming the natural incommensurability of straight and curved, and of number and motion, is the real occasion of the mathematical use of the term in question. Nor does it give any foundation for the view that would regard the infinite as a positive conception of the mind which we may apply to objects with a conscious meaning.

This will be more apparent when we attend to the difference between two classes of negative notions. The first class includes those whose negative brings something positive; thus, not hot, brings before us a positive experience, namely, cold; not white, according to what is intended, turns up either black or all other colors, which are to us as much a positive, or real, conception as white. Unjust, or not just, is the name for a distinct class of really existing actions, in contrast to the class named just actions, All notions, such as these, which have for opposites really existing things, are real and genuine notions of the mind; they are conceivable by us to the full extent that we are capable of conceiving anything whatsoever. In fact, the highest test of genuineness, reality, and conceivability, is the existence of a negative, which is also real and positive. Body or matter is a real conception by being opposed to space; the one resists our movements, and the other permits them. Body and space together make the extended universe, the world of externality, or objective existence; which has a distinct meaning by contrast to the inextended mind, or the subject universe. But existence, as a whole, is not a real conception, because we have nothing to oppose it to; non-existence is not a real opposite, like space to body, or mind to extension; it is only a formal or verbal opposite, made up by using the word for negation to a case that does not admit of the operation. Non-existence is total annihilation, which, of course, we cannot conceive, as we do cold or black, in their opposition to hot and

Inflammation.

white. This being so, we have nothing to affirm respecting existence as expressing the absolute totality of things. See EXTENSION.

Now, to which class of notions does infinite belong? Is it a real opposite to the finite, like cold to heat, or a verbal and formal opposite, like non-existence? Finite means what has a boundary or termination, and applies strictly to body, which is always conceived by us as bounded and terminating in space. body (or some analogy of body, as when we fancy an inclosure which we do not actually The bounded is, in fact, construct); the absence of bounds is free space, which is a real conception. It means scope for movement, freedom from obstruction, and its opposite is some inert matter. standing in our way, to prevent further movement. The unbounded is thus another name for space; and when we arrive at a space with no further prospect of obstructio.., we may call that a boundless space, but the only meaning we have thereby is a space which no longer contains material obstruction. And we can conceive of no other end of space. Our whole experience furnishes no other contrast except these two, space and body, and where the one ends, the mind must conceive the other. ceive the not-extended, it is true, by passing to the subject mind, with its feelings and We may convolitions; but within the sphere of the extended we have no choice but between space and body. We cannot conceive the end of space otherwise than by the beginning of resistance; anything else (not being the subject mind) would be non-existence, or annihilation.

The infinite may thus be the name for an abbreviation in mathematics, but as a real notion of the mind, it merely expresses our inability to pass beyond the region of our experience of matter and space.

INFINITES'IMAL CALCULUS. See CALCULUS.
INFINITIVE. See VERB.

INFLAMMATION is the most important of all the morbid processes that fall under the notice of the physician or surgeon. inflammation, when it attacks an external or visible part, are pain, redness, heat, and The most obvious symptoms or phenomena of swelling, or, in the words of Celsus, "rubor et tumor cum calore et dolore." The general characters of the process will be best understood by an assumed case. healthy man gets a splinter of wood or any other foreign body imbedded in any fleshy If a part, he begins to experience pain at the part, and this is soon succeeded by redness of the skin, a firm and extremely tender swelling at and around the spot, and a sense of abnormal heat. These purely local symptoms are succeeded, if the inflammation reach a certain degree of intensity, by a general derangement of the vascular and nervous systems, to which various names, such as constitutional disturbance, symptomatic or inflammatory fever, pyrexia, etc., have been applied. If the foreign body is extracted, the probability is that all these symptoms will gradually abate until the part at length regains its natural appearance and sensations. terminate by resolution, and this is the most favorable mode of termination. If, howIn this case the inflammation is said to ever, the cause of. irritation is not removed, or if the intensity of the morbid process exceed a certain point, the following phenomena occur: the swelling assumes a more projecting or pointed form, the part becomes softer, and the skin at its center, which is usually the most projecting part, becomes whiter. There is a sensation of throbbing pain, and if the skin be not divided by the knife, it finally breaks, and a yellow, creamlike fluid, known as pus (q.v.), escapes, after which the symptoms readily abate. This termination is known as suppuration.

If the original injury was very severe, and the inflammation intense, there may be actual death of the part affected. In that case, the red color of the skin becomes purple or greenish black, the pain ceases, and the part becomes dead and putrid. This is mortification. Under favorable circumstances, this dead part, which is called a slough, spontaneously separates from the adjacent living parts by a vital process known as ulceration (q.v.), and the cavity which is thus formed gradually fills up and heals. The pain may vary from mere discomfort to intense agony. pain in those parts in which the tension produced by the swelling is the greatest, as in There is usually most. bone, serous and fibrous membranes, etc. The pain occurring in inflammation is always aggravated by pressure, and by this means the physician can often distinguish between inflammatory and non-inflammatory disorders. The heat is seldom so much increased as the sensations of the patient would lead him to believe; it does not rise above the maximum heat of the blood in the interior of the body. This increase of heat depends upon the increased flow of arterial (or highly oxidized) blood to the part. The redness depends upon there being more blood than usual in those vessels in the affected part which usually carry red blood; upon the blood containing an increased number of red corpuscles; and upon red blood entering into vessels which, in the normal state, convey colorless fluids only, or which naturally admit so few red corpuscles that they cannot usually be observed. The swelling depends in part upon the distension of the bloodvessels, but mainly upon the effusion of various fluids, such as blood, serum, coagulable lymph (or fibrine), and pus into the tissue of the affected part. These fluids are termed the products of inflammation. This coagulable lymph frequently becomes organized, and many changes, some of a reparative nature (to which a reference will be presently made), and others of a morbid nature, depend upon its effusion.

Numerous observers have attempted to trace the exact phenomena of inflammation, by microscopic examination of the transparent parts of animals in which the process has been artificially excited. From observation made on the web of the frog's foot and other transparent parts of animals by Wharton Jones, Paget, and others, the following general conclusions may be drawn.

1. The primary effect of a slight stimulus applied to the blood-vessels is a slight and gradual contraction, with a retardation of the current through them.

2. During this contraction, the blood is impeded, or altogether stops. But the vessels soon dilate to a size larger than they originally possessed, and the blood now moves through them more rapidly than in the normal state. The slight stimulus that previously caused the vessels to contract, has now, if re-applied, little or no effect; but on applying a more powerful irritant, such as a minute drop of tincture of capsicum, the phenomena of active congestion or determination of blood become almost instantaneously developed. The vessels become lengthened, dilated, and tortuous, and are distended with blood which contains a great excess of red corpuscles, and is circulated with far more than the normal velocity.

3. But if the injury be still more severe-if, for example, a red-hot needle be inserted -then, in addition to the active congestion described in the preceding paragraph, there is a retardation, and finally a complete stagnation of the blood in the capillaries of the injured spot, while around it the blood moves rapidly through turgid but less full vessels.

The blood obtained by bleeding a patient suffering from inflammation of any important organ, usually presents a peculiar appearance after coagulation. In healthy blood, the clot consists of a uniform admixture of blood corpuscles and coagulated fibrine, and is of a deep red color; but in inflammation, the upper part of the clot consists of a layer of a yellowish or whitish color, to which the term buffy coat is applied. This buffy coat is often concave, or hollowed out into a cup-like form, in which case the blood is said to be both buffed and cupped. The cause of this buffy coat is still to some extent an open question; but the phenomenon is clearly due to a subsidence of the blood corpuscles, by which a layer of fibrine, forming the buffy coat, is left at the surface. Another and a more important change in the blood in inflammation is the augmentation of the fibrine, which often rises to two, three, or more times its normal quantity.

Reference has already been made to coagulable lymph or fibrine as one of the products of inflammation. This effusion of coagulable lymph is so important a process both for good and for evil, that a few lines must be devoted to its special consideration. When coagulable lymph is effused between membranes that are normally in contact (or nearly so) with one another, it often causes them to cohere. In this way we often have adhesions of the adjacent surfaces of serous membranes, such as the pleuræ, the pericardium, and the peritoneum, which materially interfere with the natural free motion of the parts, and occasion various persistent morbid symptoms. In inflammation of the iris, the pupil may be rendered irregular or immovable, or may even be closed up by the effusion of coagulable lymph. In endocarditis, or inflammation of the lining mem brane of the heart, coagulable lymph may be deposited in wart-like masses on the valves, and may thus occasion some of the worst forms of cardiac disease. On the other hand, in many cases, the effusion of coagulable lymph has a reparative and conservative influence. It is by the organization of this fluid that the lips of recent wounds are glued together, and that parts recently severed from the body may be sometimes replaced and still live. The success of the Talicotian operation, by which a new nose is engrafted in the position of that which had been lost-of the operation of injecting a stimulating fluid into cystic tumors, etc., with the view of setting up adhesive inflammation-and of various other surgical operations, essentially depends upon the property of organization possessed by this fluid. It is thus, too, that ulcers are gradually filled up till the breach of texture is repaired.

The inflammatory diseases of the most important organs are described under their specific names, and, as a general rule, the termination itis is employed to indicate an inflammation. Thus, pleuritis signifies inflammation of the pleura; peritonitis, inflammation of the peritoneum; iritis, inflammation of the iris; etc. Inflammation of the lungs, however, is usually known as pneumonia instead of pneumonitis.

It is unnecessary to enter into the consideration of the treatment of inflammation further than to remark (1) that if possible we must remove its exciting cause, which can seldom be done except when the inflammation is external; and (2) that the patient should be placed on a strictly antiphlogistic regimen (which implies a total abstinence from solid animal food and stimulating drinks, due attention to ventilation, temperature, etc.). Of the direct remedies, the most important (except in persons of weak or broken-down constitutions) is blood-letting, although at present it is somewhat out of fashion. The medicines chiefly employed are purgatives, preparations of mercury, tartar emetic, and opium; while, as external applications, hot fomentations (occasionally cold lotions), and counter-irritation by means of blisters, sinapisms, setons, etc., are often of service.

INFLAMMATION (ante). It is held by some authorities that during the first stage, when the capillaries are contracted, the circulation is increased in rapidity, and diminished during dilatation; while others hold that it is slower in the first stage and more

rapid in the second. This difference of opinion arises in consequence of making the observations under different circumstances. If a capillary be enlarged through its whole length the blood will pass through it, for a short time, more rapidly than is nat ural, and when constricted it will be slower; but if contracted in some places and dilated in others, the blood will necessarily move more slowly in the dilated places and more rapidly in the contracted places, according to physical laws. But after a while an oscil· lation will take place, and at last there will be stagnation, and distension with colored corpuscles. Liquor sanguinis then exudes through the walls of the vessels, which are sometimes ruptured, allowing the blood corpuscles to escape. The contraction of the capillaries in the first stage and their dilatation in the second is in consequence of the action of involuntary muscular fibers which are placed around the vessels in a transverse direction, like the involuntary muscular fibers of the intestinal canal. This fact explains the power of the emotions over the capillary system in producing pallor and blushing. Sometimes all the symptoms cf inflammation are not present, and sometimes they may all be absent, as in the latent pneumonia of the aged. It is necessary, therefore, for the physician to be very guarded in his diagnosis, particularly if the patient be feeble or old. As to the result of an inflammation, it will depend upon whether the exudation live or die. If it live, it undergoes transformations which depend upon the condition of the system. If the system be healthy, the exudation, if it take place upon a serous membrane, will have a tendency to form fibrous tissue, but on mucous membranes or in areolar tissue the tendency is to the formation of pus corpuscles. When the exudation accompanies inflammation produced by wounds the superficial portion is transformed into pus, while the deeper portion is converted into nucleated fibers, which eventually form a cicatrix or scar. Severe inflammation, such as that which takes place after a compound fracture, is attended by several very decided symptoms, such as marked alternation of heat and chilliness; the pulse is very rapid, the skin and mouth are dry, the urine scanty and high-colored. There is great thirst, and unless relief be procured delirium will soon supervene. Constipation is the rule, but, when the bowels are moved, the discharges are very offensive.

According to the manner of its action inflammation is called healthy or unhealthy; and that which is called healthy is really a natural and not a morbid process, the only pathological product being pus, and that of a character called healthy. The color which inflammation produces in a part depends upon the kind of tissue invaded, and upon the intensity of the action. Ligaments and tendons rarely become red. Fibrous membranes, like the sclerotic coat of the eye, assume a lilac color; the mucous membranes at first become scarlet, then darker, and, if the tissue die, black. Inflammation of serous membranes passes from lilac to scarlet, to brown. The kidneys become violet. Inflammation arrests nutrition and consequently diminishes the amount of tissue in a part, which becomes manifest when the swelling subsides.

The treatment of inflammation has been greatly simplified and improved by the discoveries of modern histology and therapeutics. It is local and general, the former consisting in various applications depending on circumstances. Sometimes warm fomentations are desirable, as affording relief to the nerves of the part, and promoting an interchange of material in the stagnated parts. Sometimes the continued application of cold is the best remedy to prevent destructive action. Inflammation is sometimes prevented by bandaging or by the application of adhesive straps, but such an operation requires great caution. The study of pathology and experience in practice has shown the impropriety of employing depleting measures in most of the inflammatory conditions, which usually require measures calculated to increase nutrition. Indeed, it is to be borne in mind constantly that recovery from inflammation consists mainly in regeneration or reproduction of tissue. The old tissue must mainly pass away, and the newly formed can be healthy only when developed under the influence of healthy nervous action. Therefore recovery is gradual and requires the repeated renewal of considerable of the tissue of diseased parts. Tonics are often of more service than depletants, and anodynes are of frequent advantage in allaying irritation. Great attention must be paid to the condition of the blood. This vital fluid is naturally alkaline, but often diminishes in this property during inflammation. The alkalinity should be increased by the administration of alkaline medicines, such as the bicarbonates of soda or potash, or both. Wine is often of advantage; also, a nutritious but bland diet. There are conditions of inflammation, however, when decided antiphlogistic measures are indicated, as in vio lent attacks of pleurisy in robust persons. In such, sometimes the only means of sav ing the life of the patient is prompt bleeding, together with the administration of opiates, and sometimes mercurials, in no hesitating and doubting manner. Great attention should be paid to ventilation. The purer the air the more rapid will be the recovery. Frequent bathing, generally with tepid water, and all the well-established hygienic measures suitable to the occasion, should not be neglected.

INFLECTION is a general name used by grammarians for all those changes that words undergo when placed in relation to one another in a sentence. See DECLENSION, CONJUGATION, GENITIVE. Most of these changes occur in the end syllable or syllables of the word; and with regard to these at least, there is every reason to believe that they were originally separate words joined on to the root words (see LANGUAGE), and that