PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 303 



VIRULENT WOUNDS. 



Virulent wounds do not differ from poisonous wounds, ex- 

 cept, in the fact that in the latter the poison deposited is not 

 renewed. Virulent wounds, on the contraiy, are genuine 

 laboratories where active substances are manufactured, and 

 act upon the system after entering the blood, which they 

 corrupt. In the poisoned wound only the soluble substan- 

 ces are absorbed and drawn into general circulation, while 

 in the virulent wound, both micro-organisms and their 

 poisons pass through the absorbing surface. The micro-or- 

 ganisms colonize at distant points, create foci of secondary 

 infection, and by cultivating themselves in the wound inject 

 the system with fatal poisons. The domain of virulent af- 

 flictions, formerly restricted, is now considerably enlarged, 

 and the study of microbian complications of wounds is now 

 relegated to the description of the diseases themselves, 



The greater portion of these afBictions — tetanus, septicae- 

 mia, gaseous gangrene, pyaemia — are considered in succeed- 

 ing chapters. 



Envenomed wounds are characterized by the inocula- 

 tion of a poison secreted by a venomous animal or insect. 

 The poison is known as "venom." 



Serpents are the most formidable of venomous animals. 

 In France the viper is not rare. In the year 1896, 16,000 

 of them were killed in the department of Doubs. It bites 

 horses under the belly, on the limbs, and on the neck and 

 shoulders; cows on the udder and dogs in ,the throat, the 

 lips and the paws. Being abundant in tropical countries, 

 venomous serpents frequently cause fatal accidents. They 

 inoculate the product of the venomous glands, which are 

 analogous to the saliva of mammals, into the animal bitten 

 by means of their fangs. The most deadly are the naja, the 

 cerastes, the bothryps, the bomgarus ceruleus and the cobra. 



