178 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
of turpentine, and salicylate of soda. They are introduced mostly 
through the digestive mucous membranes (mouth, rectum), some by 
hypodermic injections (carbolic acid, sulphate of quinine). It is better 
to administer them under the form of rectal injections than by force 
through the mouth. Lately, hypodermic and intravenous injections of 
weak solutions of corrosive sublimate have been tried for man. While 
the first proved insufficient, the intravenous injections (30 to 40 milli- 
grammes of corrosive sublimate in 8-10 injections) by the method of 
Bacelli, have given Kermarsky several successes. It is amethod which 
might be tried with animals. The patient should be kept up on tonics, 
milk, hay-tea, and soups. If anorexia is present, nutritious. rectal in- 
jections should be given. 
‘The same as for septicemia, when already the organism is thoroughly 
infected and intoxicated, whatever antiseptics are used, and no matter 
what is the dose or the mode of administration, the bacterians still 
triumph. There is chance of success only at the beginning of the in-° 
fection. As proof of the possibility of recovery from pyohzmia, facts, 
it is true, have been mentioned in which, at the post-mortem examin- 
ation of some horses, caseous purulent centers, disseminated through 
the viscera, were found ; but a close study of these facts shows that 
they were of tuberculous or glanderous nature, and due to chronic 
purulent injection. We do not know that, up to this time, authentic 
cases of the cure of confirmed pyohzemia in horses, as expressed by the 
clinical signs which announce visceral infection, have ever been 
reported. 
VIII 
SURGICAL SEPTICAIMIA.—TRAUMATIC GANGRENE. 
A formidable complication of traumas is surgical septicaemia, an 
_infectious, microbian disease, produced by the septic vibrio or bacillus 
_seplicus gangrenus. 
All animal species are subject to it, but all are not equally liable ; and in 
each species, all the individuals do not possess like aptitude to contract 
it. It is most frequently observed in horses, less commonly in dogs, 
swine, and ruminants ; among the latter, cattle are only exceptionally 
affected. 
Old surgery had clearly mentioned the condition in which traumatic 
septicemia occurs. It was known that recent wounds, contused, irreg- 
ular, with crushed or sphacelated borders, were principally liable to 
it. The dangerous influence of overcrowding, limited quarters, close 
air, and atmosphere vitiated by agglomeration of the sick were all 
recognized. It is nearly a century since Barthelemy and Dupuy made 
the first experiments at Alfort to threw light on the pathogeny of this 
