ICHORRH^EHIA CANCEROUS DYSCRASIA. 251 



purulent infection of the blood, but the term must be re- 

 garded as a collective name for several processes dissimi- 

 lar in their nature. 



I hope, gentlemen, that what I have now imparted to 

 you will be sufficient to put you in possession of the chief 

 bearings of the subject. Of course no real demonstra- 

 tion can be afforded without reference to distinct cases. 

 You will, however, yourselves have sufficient opportunity 

 for testing the exactitude of this description of mine, and 

 I shall be glad if you find that important data have 

 thereby also been furnished, by which clearer conceptions 

 with regard to the really practical, and especially the 

 therapeutical, questions arising out of the subject, may 

 be obtained. 



Now that we have become acquainted not only with 

 corporeal particles, but also with certain chemical sub- 

 stances as the originators of dyscrasia, lasting for a lon- 

 ger or shorter time according as the supply of these par- 

 ticles and substances continues for a longer or shorter pe- 

 riod, we may briefly revert -to the question, whether, in 

 addition to these forms, a kind of dyscrasia can be shown 

 to exist in which the blood is the permanent seat of definite 

 changes. We must answer this question in the negative. 

 The more marked a really demonstrable contamination 

 of the blood with certain matters is, the more manifest 

 is the relatively acute course of the process. Just the 

 very forms * in which medical men are most apt to con- 

 sole themselves especially for the shortcomings of the 

 therapeutical results, with the reflection that they have 

 to do with the deeply rooted and incurable chronic dys- 

 crasia just these forms depend, I imagine, least of ah 1 

 upon an original change in the blood ; for these are pre- 



* Tubercle, cancer, purpura, syphilis, etc. 



