PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 381 



fection or hectic fever by old authors. In this condition the 

 symptoms are less intense and more prolonged. 



These conditions are the real septicaemias in the proper 

 sense of the term. They are characterized by a poisoning 

 of the blood rather than by microbian infection of that 

 liquid. These surgical complications are, therefore, very dif- 

 ferent from pyaemia, which is itself an embolic septicaemia, as 

 Vermuil correctly called it. Purulent-infection pyaemia is, 

 in fact, a distinct colonization of micro-organisms, while 

 surgical septicaemia is a poisoning of the anatomical elements 

 by the microbian products elaborated in the wound and car- 

 ried into the system by the blood. Before the time of Pas- 

 teur it was thovight to be the absorption of certain particular 

 substances, one of which — sepsine — seemed to produce all 

 the trouble. In 1868 Bergmann claimed to have isolated 

 this poison. Gradually the microbian doctrine, becoming bet- 

 ter understood and better interpreted, supplanted the former 

 theory. 



The discovery of microbian toxins, and the numerous ex- 

 perimental researches in that connection, cast a new light 

 on the origin of these affections. It was then admitted by 

 all that fever following surgical operations is due to the en- 

 trance of toxins into the blood, that were elaborated by infec- 

 tious agents in the wounded tissues. The studies of Bou- 

 chard and his school brought into full view the function of 

 microbian toxins, their action on the nerve centers and par- 

 ticularly on the thermic centers. The experiments of Claude 

 Bernard arrested the evolution of the doctrine of Pasteur 

 and a long controversy resulted. The learned physiolo- 

 gist, Claude, maintaining that no fever resulted by implantmg 

 a nail in a horse's foot, the nerves of which had been previous- 

 ly cut, drew the conclusion that the fever should be attributed 

 exclusively to the influence of the nervous system, and Vul- 

 pian shared in this opinion. But is not the absence of fever af- 



