2 Veterinary Medici?ie. 



rabbit septicaemias, metritis, phlebitis, omphalitis, rouget, bar- 

 bone, chicken cholera, septicaemia haemorrhagica, etc. — yet a 

 certain number have been left to be referred to under the generic 

 terms, though respectively due to different microbes. 



Distinctions between Pyemia and Septicemia. Pyemia is a 

 morbid condition characterized by the formation in different 

 organs of multiple metastatic abscesses, dependent on the trans- 

 ference, in the blood stream, of infected clots, or particles con- 

 taining pus microbes, and their arrest at distant points, so as to 

 cause foci of suppuration commencing with the intima of the 

 vessels. 



Septicemia indicates a general infection often by the same mi- 

 crobes, but showing its results in enlargement and blood engorge- 

 ment of the spleen and lymph glands and necrotic foci of the 

 liver, kidneys and other organs, but without the formation of 

 multiple abscesses. The presence of the microbes in the different 

 organs affected, shows that it is not due to the diffusion of the 

 toxic chemical products alone, as at one time supposed, and the 

 lack of abscesses appears to be due to the absence of clots or of 

 modified and adhesive leucocytes or haematoblasts, which ad- 

 hering to the epithelium of the vessels predispose to suppuration. 



The two conditions are, however, often combined, constituting 

 what is known as septicopyemia. 



As in the occurrence of other infecting diseases, the condition 

 of varying susceptibility must be taken into account, one indi- 

 vidual, or one species resisting an inoculation which would be 

 deadly to another. 



Pyaemia. Causes. The causation microbes are most commonly 

 staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, or albus, the streptococcus 

 pyogenes, and less frequently bacillus pyocyaneus, bacterium coli 

 commune, and probably any pus producing microbe. Many con- 

 ditions must however be accepted as contributing to the general 

 infection. 



Inoculation on a mere abrasion or surface sore is not to be 

 dreaded so much as if the virus is lodged subaitaneonsly or in a 

 deep icound. The ready escape of the toxic products, the active 

 leucocytosis which takes place in the granulations, and the action 

 of the oxygen of the air are more or less protective in the ex- 

 posed sores. 



