AN ADDRESS OX THE TREATMENT OF WOUNDS 283 



examination of the first compartment ; and I was tearing off a part of the firm 

 coagulum from the hning membrane when I opened into a httle cavitv in the 

 clot about a quarter of an inch long and one-eighth of an inch in other dimen- 

 sions, containing a tliick liquid of pearly-white colour, the cavity having a thin 

 grey lining separated by a layer of dark clot from the wall of the vein, except 

 at one part. Here it communicated with a small venous branch, whose contents 

 had been entirely converted into this white liquid for a short distance, beyond 

 which the branch was obstructed by clot. On microscopic examination I found 

 this white liquid composed entirely of closely packed corpuscles of new formation 

 like those above described as infiltrating the clot. Here, however, the new cell 

 development had taken place at the expense of all the original constituents of 

 the coagulum, so that the fibrine had entirely disappeared, and only a stray 

 red corpuscle here and there was to be discovered, and no granular debris was 

 observed. The liquid was, in fact, neither more nor less than pus, and the 

 cavity a small abscess. The evidence of endogenous cell development was in 

 this liquid extremely striking. Many of the corpuscles resembled those of 

 ordinary pus, though of varying dimensions ; but often bodies exactly similar 

 to the free pus corpuscles were seen still included as nuclei within large pellucid 

 cells. In one such cell which I sketched there were four nuclei, three of which 

 exactly resembled the free pus corpuscles. Thus I had the opportunity of 

 repeating observations made in the course of very similar experiments carried 

 on as early as 1864, experiments which, I believe, helped to prepare my mind 

 for applying to surgical practice the conclusions of Pasteur as to the nature of 

 putrefaction. Those observations have never yet been published, as I was 

 compelled to suspend the investigation by the pressure of clinical work in 

 connexion with the development of the antiseptic system. They proved, 

 however, in the clearest manner that a blood-clot within a vein is, under 

 septic influence, liable to a genuine suppuration — that is to say, to a change 

 which is no mere result of breaking dow^n of fibrine and accumulation of white 

 corpuscles of the blood, but consists of a growth of living corpuscles multi- 

 plying by endogenous cell development at the expense of the original consti- 

 tuents of the coagulum. 



As to the source of these newly formed corpuscles, we must suppose them 

 to have been derived either from the white corpuscles of the blood or from 

 })roliferation of elements of the tissues of the wall of the vein. It we conceive 

 them to have originated in white corpuscles of the blood, it is nevertheless 

 (juite certain that they were not mere emigrated white corpuscles, but that they 

 had sprung from them as a new and altered progeny. The actual appearances 

 })resented favoured the \-iew that the new cells had been derived from the 



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