400 SEPTIC BLOOD DISEASES. 



connective, adipose, and muscular tissues in the neighbourhood 

 become the seat of gelatinous infiltration containing a large 

 quantity of very foetid gases, and a reddish-yellow liquid teeming 

 with the characteristic vibriones, absent in the blood during 

 life, and only found in small numbers after death. The central 

 l^art of the swelling soon loses its sensibility, and becomes moist, 

 clammy, and cold — gangrenous ; the circumferences of the 

 swelling, however, are hot, tense, and extremely sensitive, the 

 vibriones having evidently abandoned the centre, as only 

 putrefactive germs can now be found therein, and invaded the 

 surrounding tissues, where they continue to live at the expense of 

 their vitality, and so on in a regular invasion until a general 

 infection results, manifested by pulmonary oedema and con- 

 gestion of the intestinal mucous membranes, the bacilli being 

 found abundantly in the serous discharges, and but sparsely in 

 the blood. The disease may follow surgical operations, par- 

 ticularly castration, when performed with unclean instruments. 



III. Stercorccmia — Intestinal Toxccmia. — Absorption of bac- 

 terial products from any tissue or a mucous membrane, whether 

 abraded or not — {a.) when the products are those of pyogenic 

 bacteria, or (h.) those of ordinary putrefaction, e.g., Proteus B. 

 colicommitnis. 



Symptoms. — These vary in proportion to the dose, (a.) The 

 temperature rises several degrees, and remains so till absorption 

 ceases, from the products becoming arrested in the course 

 of natural drainage, such as free suppuration, free incisions, and 

 irrigation, when arising from a wound. Constitutional dis- 

 turbance well marked. (I.) When the dose is large, rapid 

 collapse may follow. 



(c.) Surgical shock is simply a saprpemia, in which death 

 occurs in one to tw^o days after severe symptoms, especially those 

 seen after abdominal operations, castration, &c., owing doubtless 

 to the enormous rapidity with which the peritoneum absorbs 

 the toxic products. 



IV. Hectic. — A chronic form of saprreraia seen typically in 

 long-continued " mixed infections," in chronic tuberculosis, where 

 there is a constant absorption of small quantities of virus. 



Sym2:)toms. — Irregular, with a tendency to periodicity of 

 elevations and remissions, progressive emaciation, loss of 

 appetite, and death from exhaustion. 



