148 Manual of Veterinary Microbiology. 



These considerations, important as they are from a 

 theoretical point of view, have, in practice, only a 

 secondary interest. Under natural conditions suppur- 

 ation is really always the result of microbes, acting 

 not of themselves, as was at first supposed, but, ac- 

 cording to recent researches, by means of the toxines 

 to which their nutritive exchanges give rise.* 



The rational application of antiseptics in the dress- 

 ing of wounds has, further, to a large extent, demon- 

 strated this truth, in making union by first intention 

 the necessary termination of operative wounds. 



The most common bacteria of suppuration are : 

 the staphylococcus -pyogenes aureus (yellow pus) ; 

 the staphylococcus pyogenes albus (white pus) ; 

 the staphylococcus p^yogenes citreus; 

 the streptococcus pyogenes, 

 and several other species, including a bacillus — the 

 bacillus pyogenes septicus. 



These are met with in the various suppurative 

 processes: phlegmons, abscesses and the effusions of 

 pysemia, purulent inflammations of the external and 

 internal surfaces, etc. 



The yellow staphylococcus has also been found in 

 furuncles and malignant pustule; the particular char- 

 acters of these diseases seem to depend on the mode 

 of penetration and the localization of the pyogenic 

 germs rather than on the special nature of the latter. 

 We have ourselves encountered the staphylococcus 

 albus in furuncles which had developed in large num- 



* [According to Bucliner's investigations, the pyogenic property 

 of sterilized cultures of many bacterial species resides in the bac- 

 teria themselves, and not in the chemical products which they 

 secrete. — D.] 



