128 CLINICAL BACTERIOLOGY AND 



it must be laid open to permit of free drainage and the 

 admission of dressings. The curette is a most useful instru- 

 ment for the removal of lodged bacteria on the edges or 

 at the blind end of the wound. If the flow of lymph 

 appears deficient, the wound should be irrigated with 

 citrate of soda solution, or even salt and water; and when 

 the wound appears to be tardy in its healing process, if 

 located in the limbs, we have found considerable benefit 

 from the application of Bier's treatment. 



Where one is dealing with septic uterine disease, the 

 womb must be irrigated and a similar treatment carried 

 out as in endometritis. 



Medicines in these cases can be of little avail. Should, 

 however, the temperature be high, salicylic acid is indi- 

 cated, and it is well to keep the eliminative organs active. 

 Thus the bowels should be kept open with salines, the 

 kidneys stimulated, and for this purpose there is no better 

 drug than turpentine ; while a useful diaphoretic is liq. 

 ammon. acet. combined with salicylic acid. 



Pyaemia. 



The bacteria involved in the production of this disease 

 are practically similar to those which cause septicaemia. 

 The characteristics, however, of the two diseases differ in 

 a marked degree. In pyaemia multiple abscesses occurring 

 in various centres of the body, as the result of metastasis, 

 distinguish this disease from septicaemia. 



A purulent centre may be the means of producing 

 pyaemia through the protective wall giving way, the 

 specific bacteria entering the blood or lymph stream. 

 Examples of this are to be found in strangles in the horse, 

 purulent thrombophlebitis in foals and calves, and puer- 

 peral pyaemia in the mare and the cow. Where abscess 

 formations are found in the internal organs, diagnosis is 

 not always easy, and the disease may have advanced too 

 far for treatment to be of any avail. Moreover, these 

 abscesses are generally tensely filled with pus, which pre- 



