ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
249 
agree in the main with those of previous observers, their accuracy may 
be admitted. 
Microbic Origin of Purulent Surgical Infection.* — MM. S. Arloing 
and E. Chantre, after reciting their views at length, sum them up as 
follows: — The essential agents of purulent surgical infection are the 
ordinary microbes of suppuration. Should other microbes be present 
in the lesions with any frequency, they are to be regarded in the light 
of complications, and not as necessary factors in the development of the 
purulent infection. A purulent infection can only result when the strep- 
tococcus (the authors confine themselves to that form) is endowed 
with the same virulence as it possesses in the acute and severe forms 
of puerperal septicaemia, and not with that which it exhibits in simple 
phlegmon or erysipelas. 
Though tetiological relations between purulent infection, puerperal 
septicaemia, and erysipelas may be suspected, yet it cannot be proved 
where and how the change in the pathogenic properties of the strepto- 
coccus, productive of different clinical conditions, is effected. 
* Comptes Rendus, cxvii. (1893) pp. 324-7. 
1894 
s 
