22 MANUAL OF EQUINE MEDICINE. 



has been given to show that the others are probably due to 

 the same cause. These inflammations are termed crypto- 

 genetic. The fungi may act as chemical or mechanical 

 irritants, thus acting in the same way as the causes of 

 simple inflammation. When the products of the life- 

 action of these low vegetable organisms are irritant, inflam- 

 mation results ; the intensity of the process varying with 

 the quantity and intensity of the irritant. If the irritation 

 is intense, suppuration results ; if it is less severe, the early 

 stages of productive inflammation occur, as is supposed to 

 be the case in farcy and tubercle. The characteristic lesion 

 of these and some other diseases is an inflammatory nodulate, 

 raised round a spot at which the fungi have probably lodged, 

 and whence they may spread and infect other parts. These 

 lesions are spoken of as the 'Infective Granulomata,' the 

 name signifying infective tumour-like formations of granula- 

 tion-tissue (Ziegler). 



Some fungi cannot live in healthy tissues ; these are 

 called 'non-pathogenic' Of the others, which are called 

 ' pathogenic,' some spread only by continuity of the tissues; 

 others find a suitable nidus in lymph; whilst others enter the 

 blood-stream, and are carried by it through the body {e.g., 

 Bacillus Anthracis). It is in this way that metastatic inflam- 

 mations are to be explained ; for example, the secondary 

 abscesses of pysemia, which constantly contain microbes, 

 and the albuminuria, which so often complicates certain 

 specific diseases. 



The cryptogenetic inflammations are divided into the 

 septic and the infective : 



1. Septic. — Of non-pathogenic organisms, those which 

 cause ordinary putrefaction are of much importance in in- 

 flammation. 



The term Septic should be restricted to inflammations of 

 this kind. 



