CHAPTER XVIII 



WOUND INFECTIONS 



/CERTAIN of the diseases heretofore considered 

 ^-^ may be communicated to man by inoculation 

 and are occasionally contracted by the accidental 

 inoculation of wounds or abrasions. Thus we may 

 have a tubercular infection of the skin (" lupus") ex- 

 tending sometimes to adjacent lymphatic glands, or a 

 localised diphtheritic process, upon any portion of 

 the surface of the body. But in the present chapter 

 we propose to consider certain localised or general 

 infectious diseases which as a rule have their origin 

 through the accidental introduction of pathogenic 

 bacteria into an open wound or upon an abraded 

 surface. Before the days of antiseptic surgery such 

 accidental inoculations were much more frequent than 

 at present. Erysipelas, hospital gangrene, suppura- 

 tion, septicaemia (" blood-poisoning "), and tetanus 

 were of frequent occurrence and the mortality from 

 certain surgical operations which are now almost free 



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