SEPTICEMIA AND PYEMIA. 395 



under which the new formation of epithelium proceeds rapidly. 

 The skin eruption mostly appears on the hands, tips of the fingers, 

 base of the nails, and more seldom on the toes and other parts of the 

 body. Besides these local changes, during the course of the disease 

 headache, pain in the limbs, vertigo, abdominal cramps, vomiting, 

 diarrhea, and weakness are occasionally observed. The disease is 

 seldom fatal, usually appearing in a very mild form except in weak- 

 ened children, in whom an accompanying intestinal catarrh may 

 lead to a fatal termination. 



Veterinarians who have had considerable experience with the dis- 

 ease among animals regard the human affection as by no means un- 

 common in countries where foot-and-mouth disease prevails, but 

 the disturbance of health is usually too slight to come to the notice 

 of the family physician. 



But few outbreaks of the disease in man have occurred in the 

 United States, and therefore cases of its transmission to man in 

 this country are rather rare. Dr. James Law reports having ob- 

 served the disease in man from drinking infected milk during the 

 epizootic of 1870 in the Eastern States, but the outbreaks of 1880 

 and 1884 affected such a small number of animals and were so 

 quickly suppressed that no instance of its transmission to man was 

 recorded. A few cases have been reported by Brush accompanying 

 the New England outbreak of 1902. Similar reports have been like- 

 wise received concerning the appearance of vesicular eruptions in 

 the mouths of children during the 1908 and 1914 outbreaks, and the 

 history of these cases incriminates the milk supply. 



Experiments by Loeffler and Froesch, as well as recent experiments 

 which have been made in Denmark and Germany, indicate that the 

 infection is comparatively easy to destroy by heat or the usual anti- 

 septics. Milk pasteurized at a temperature of 60° C. for 20 minutes 

 is safe so far as infection bj^ foot-and-mouth disease is concerned. 



SEPTICEMIA AND PYEMIA. 



These two names are applied to diseased conditions which are so 

 nearly alike in their symptoms that it is sometimes difficult to distin- 

 guish the one from the other. Indeed, the name pyosepticemia, or 

 septicopyemia, is often applied when it is impossible to make a dis- 

 tinction between septicemia and pyemia or where each is equally 

 responsible for the diseased condition. The name septicemia is de- 

 rived from two Greek words meaning " poison " and " blood," and 

 signifies that the germ lives in the blood, hence the use of the term 

 " blood poisoning " for this disease. P3^emia is likewise derived from 

 two Greek words, meaning " pus " and " blood," and is that form of 

 septicemia caused by pus-producing organisms and characterized by 

 secondarv abscesses. 



