320 DR. WILLIAM ROBERTS. 



stantly into our bodies with the air we breathe and the food 

 we take; they pass, presumably, like any other minute par- 

 ticles, through the open mouths of the lymphatics and lac- 

 teals, and penetrate some distance into these channels ; they 

 certainly come in contact with the accidental cuts, sores, and 

 scratches which so often bedeck our skins. Notwithstanding 

 all this, our bodies do not decompose; indeed, if ordinary 

 septic organisms could breed in the living tissues as they do 

 in the same tissues when dead, animal life would be im- 

 possible, every living creature would infallibly perish. How 

 these organisms are disposed of when they do enter our 

 bodies accidentally, as it were, in the various ways I have 

 suggested, we cannot say ; we can only suppose that they 

 must speedily perish, for we find no trace of them in the 

 healthy blood and healthy tissues.^ 



Bearing in mind, then, that ordinary septic organisms 

 cannot breed in the living tissues, unless, at least, they are 

 reduced to near the moribund state; bearing also in mind 

 that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between the 

 septic poison and the organisms which generate it, we are in 

 a better position to consider the course of events in a wound, 

 which leads on to septicaemia and pytemia. What probably 

 takes place is this : An unprotected wound receives infection 

 from the septic organisms of the surrounding media. If the 

 discharges are retained in the sinuosities of the wound, de- 

 composition of them sets in with production of the septic 

 poison. This is absorbed into the blood, a toxic effect fol- 

 lows, and septicaemia is established. As this effect increases 

 Avith the continuous absorption of the poison, the vitality 

 of the system is progressively lowered, and especially the 

 vitality of the tissues bordering the wound, which may be 

 topically affected by the poison which percolates through 

 them. These tissues at length become moribund or die out- 

 right; the septic organisms then invade and breed in them, 

 more septic poison is produced and absorbed ; the toxtemia 

 becomes intense, embolic centres of inflammation and sup- 

 puration are formed, and the end comes. In all this history 

 there is no necessity to assume, nor even a probability, that 

 septic organisms invade, or at least multiply, in the blood. 



^ Exception must apparently be made in regard to the tissues and organs 

 in the immediate vicinity of the absorbent surfaces. Both Klebs and 

 Burdon Sanderson found tliat portions of the liver and kidneys removed 

 from the body without extraneous contamination, produced bacteria, con- 

 trasting in this respect with the blood and muscles. — 'British Medical 

 Journal,' I'cb. fotli, lb75. 



