PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 349 



They have cultivated it on g-elatine, gelose, potato and in 

 bouillon. The pure cultures have produced typical abscess 

 in hens. A young pigeon has developed chronic septicjemia, 

 and several mice have died in from fifteen to twenty days 

 following an inoculation of these cultures. The authors are 

 of the opinion that the bacillus in question belongs to the 

 species bacillus pyogenes fetidus, and that it exists abun- 

 dantly in dung. 



Among the various pyogenic micro-organisms the staphy- 

 lococcus pyogenes aureus is the most frequently encoun- 

 tered. Karlinski found it 82 times, the albus 55 times, strep- 

 tococci 45 times, and the other different organisms only 11 

 times in 193 cases examined. 



Pyogenesis is not a specific infection and is therefore not 

 the work of these microbes alone. Suppuration is, in fact, 

 a general mode of reaction of the tissues against microbian 

 infection. 



Without wishing to rewrite a history of suppuration, it 

 is desirable to point out the elements found in pus and the 

 mode in which it has been possible to produce an abscess 

 with the micrococcus tenuis, the micrococcus prodigious, the 

 proteus vulgas, the bacillus anthracis, the fetid bacillus, etc. 



In the horse and ox botryomyces and actinomyces may 

 be the starting point of pus collections ; and, besides, certain 

 microbian toxins possess marked pyogenic properties, and 

 some inert powders and soiiie chemical substances have an 

 analogous action. But the pus found in these cases differs 

 from ordinary dus in that it is reabsorbable and inoculable. 



These data clearly show the important part played by 

 micro-organisms in the formation of abscesses. 



PATHOGENESIS.— We shall study what takes place 

 in the subcutaneous connective tissue — the areolar sys- 

 tem being the system in which abscesses develop or 

 toward which they all tend. When the infection has 



