Within every living cell (muscle, tendon, lung, bone, etc.), there is a biochemical and cellular time bomb waiting to go off—inflammation. However, it is to be noted that inflammation is a double-edged sword. More animals (and probably people) die from an inflammatory disease than all other disease processes combined, yet without an adequate inflammatory response by the body’s cells, the living organism could not survive for long. The inflammatory response is necessary for fighting infection and the normal healing of damaged tissue.

The word inflammation literally means “a burning” and has been referred to in medical literature since the first century A.D. Based on the physical observations of his human patients, the Roman Cornelius Celsus formulated his famous “cardinal signs” of inflammation: calor, ruber, tumor, and dolor. The English translation yields the following: heat, redness, swelling, and pain, respectively. To this list, the famous human pathologist Rudolf Virchow added functio laesa (loss of function). By following the observations of these two famous figures in medicine, numerous people, including Louis Pasteur, made significant observations and research discoveries with regard to the causes and functions of inflammation within a living organism