THE BACTERIA OF SUPPURATION. 165 



impossible to detect any in the blood taken by puncture of 

 the skin during life, though they may be seen in large 

 numbers in the capillaries of the kidneys, liver, etc., post 

 mortem. The best examples of extensive bacterial multi- 

 plication in the circulating blood are afforded by certain 

 infections of the lower animals, e.g., anthrax in guinea-pigs 

 or pneumococcus septicaemia in rabbits. The essential 

 fact in pyaemia, on the other hand, is the occurrence of 

 multiple abscesses in internal organs and other parts of the 

 body. In most of the cases of typical pyaemia, common in 

 pre-antiseptic days, the starting-point of the disease was a 

 septic wound with bacterial invasion of a vein leading to 

 thrombosis and secondary embolism. Multiple foci of 

 suppuration may be produced, however, in other ways, as 

 will be described below (p. 182). If the term "pyaemia" 

 be used to embrace all such conditions, their method of 

 production should always be distinguished. 



THE BACTERIA OF SUPPURATION. 



A considerable number of species of bacteria have been 

 found in the pus of acute suppurations, and of these many 

 have been proved to be the causes of the condition, whilst 

 of some others the exact action has not yet been fully 

 determined. 



Ogston, who was one of the first to study this question 

 (in 1881), found that the organisms most frequently present 

 were micrococci, of which some were arranged irregularly 

 in clusters (staphylococci), whilst others formed chains 

 (streptococci). He found that the former were more 

 common in circumscribed acute abscesses, the latter in 

 spreading suppurative conditions. Rosenbach shortly 

 afterwards (1884), by means of cultures, differentiated 

 several varieties of micrococci, to which he gave the follow- 

 ing special names : staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, staphy- 

 lococcus pyogenes albus, streptococcus pyogenes, micrococcus 

 pyogenes tenuis. Other organisms have been met with in 



