200 Mr. G. Gulliver's Researches on Suppuration. Sect. I. 



noxious during the repai-ative process, whether this process 

 may have been employed in limiting the extent of an abscess 

 or in healing breaches of continuity. If, however, there should 

 be a formation of pus in the capillaries, in consequence of the 

 stagnation and coagulation of their contents, this pus might 

 be mixed in large quantities with the blood in cases where 

 there was no declared suppuration, as in some of the examples 

 brought forward in this paper. 



With regard to the correct observation of Miiller, that the 

 smaller capillaries have only the diameter of a blood cor- 

 puscle, I shall on a future occasion show, from the result of 

 experiments, that these vessels become sufficiently enlarged 

 during inflammation to contain a row of pus-globules. 



If it should be remarked that pus is often formed without 

 any obvious addition of fibrine to the neighbouring parts, it 

 should be recollected that this is not a healthy, but a diseased 

 form of suppuration ; and the distinction and explanation 

 are not difficult. In the formation of the unhealthy pus in 

 question, the fibrine is broken down, mixed, and excreted 

 with the pus ; and hence the flaky, curdy appearance of such 

 matter, its proneness to putrefaction, and the cases cited by come 

 authors as instances of suppuration without inflammation, 

 and the old term, " badly matured matter." Independently 

 of the paucity of true pus-globules in this kind of discharge, 

 with the abundance of flaky particles, its tendency to putre- 

 faction would affiard strong proof of its containing fibrine but 

 little changed in its composition ; for of all the animal fluids, 

 pus is probably that which resists putrefaction with the greatest 

 pertinacity. The eighth case, that of Dunn, is but one among 

 many that I could cite in illustration of these observations. 



It remains to deduce the conclusions from the experi- 

 ments and observations related in this paper. 



The term suppurative fever is not new, and its signification 

 is probably now extended ; for it seems to be an appropriate 

 one for the different forms of constitutional disturbance under 

 consideration. If the presence of pus in the blood and the 

 fever in these cases be not related as cause and effect, the 

 coincidence would appear to be no less interesting than re- 

 markable. 



What a field of inquiry this view opens to us ! Henceforth, 

 whenever a patient is affected with inflammatory fever, or 

 that low typhoid state which is so generally a forerunner of 

 death, as a consequence of traumatic or idiopathic inflam- 

 mation, the state of the blood will present an interesting sub- 

 ject of investigation. And this is not merely a matter of cu- 

 riosity; for the question will arise, whether, in the treatment 



