234: 



MICROBES, FERMENTS, AND MOULDS. 



XV. MICROBES OF Pus; PY^MIA AND SEPTICAEMIA. 



Sores and surgical operations are often followed 

 by a general poisoning of the blood and of the whole 

 system a severe affection which is rapidly fatal, and 

 characterized by the presence of pus-corpuscles in con- 

 siderable numbers in the blood and in the principal 

 organs. Together with these pus-corpuscles there is 

 always a special microbe, termed Micrococcus septicus, 

 which, like that of diphtheria, may either appear free 

 or in the form of chaplets (vibrio), or in the interior 

 of the colourless corpuscles of pus, or embryonic cells, 

 of which it effects the rupture in the form of zoogloea. 



This microbe, or others of 

 allied species, are the im- 

 mediate cause of that poison- 

 ing of the blood which is 

 termed pyaemia, septicaemia, 

 traumatic fever, puerperal 

 fever, post-mortem wounds, 

 etc. The germs of Micro- 

 coccus septicus are intro- 

 duced into the blood, and 

 multiply there, through the exposed surface of a wound, 

 or sometimes by means of the instrument which caused 

 it (Fig. 98). 



When the instrument causing the wound is charged 

 with microbes, it is not necessary that the wound 



Fig. 98. Pus-corpuscles of puerperal 

 peritonitis, lull of microccci in 

 chains ( x SOU diam.). 



