Inflammation: everything you need to know

This week I've had several hours of prac sessions and lectures and I've learned a lot about inflammation. The most important thing I've learned about inflammation is that it is completely incomprehensible. However, some things did seem obvious, so I've decided to share them with you.



When you look through a microscope at normal healthy insides, they are pink. They are squiggly and mushy looking, and there may be some holes. However, if you have inflammation, you will get lots of purple dots throughout the pink. These purple dots are on fire, which is why we call it "inflammation". You are literally about to burst into flame. Thus, we get the four classical signs of inflammation known since the Middle Ages when people first started to decipher Latin so they could read their Bibles.

1. Rubor (redness). Purple is darker than pink, and makes you look red.
2. Calor (heat). The burning purple dots are really hot!
   
3. Tumor (swelling). The gas released by the burning purple dots makes you swell up.
4. Dolor (pain). All this superheated gas trapped inside you hurts.

The purple dots are known to doctors as "polymorphs". Polymorph is Latin for "many shapes". All polymorphs look the same, except to each other. To each other, every polymorph is a special individual with a name, a family, a home, and hopes and dreams just like you and me.

I don't know where the purple dots go when the inflammation stops, but here are two possibilities. First, maybe the water you drink washes them away and you pee them out. The water would put out the fires too!

Alternatively, a doctor could get them out by doing a procedure on you called an "autopsy". You will have all the parts of you infested by purple dots cut out and mounted on slides for medical students to look at. They will be labelled as "fallopian tube", "lung", "liver" and so forth, to ensure that the slide boxes are full. It doesn't matter what part of you was cut out, since all slides look pink and squiggly. With lots of purple dots on them. Exactly the same, except to each other.