46 
ON THE PRESENCE AND EFFECT 
An ounce of turbid serum, with a little purulent matter, was 
found in the right pleura, and eight ounces of sanguinolent serum 
in the left. 
Some blood was obtained for examination from the larger veins, 
and found to be greatly contaminated with pus. 
Case YIII. — Sergeant Dunn, set. 29, had profuse suppuration 
between the muscles and beneath the integuments of the thigh : he 
died, after some weeks’ suffering, exhausted by hectic. 
The purulent matter was extremely offensive, putrefying with 
great rapidity, and sometimes coagulating spontaneously, when 
set aside for a short time. It was poor in true pus-globules, but 
contained a large quantity of flaky fibrinous matter, to which its 
opacity was chiefly owing. Many pus-globules were found in the 
blood obtained from the right ventricle. 
Case IX. — Wm. MacLean, aet. 19, died of pulmonary con- 
sumption. In his lungs were several vomicae, containing pus and 
softened tubercular matter. 
In the blood obtained from the vena cava and right ventricle 
many pus-globules were found. 
Case X. — A man had irritative fever, in the Marylebone 
Infirmary, consequent on a large abscess behind the trochanter 
femoris. 
An ounce of blood was drawn by cupping from the neighbour- 
ing sound parts, and some pus was detected in this blood. 
Case XI. — An officer’s charger died with vomicae and tuber- 
cles in the lungs, and sero-purulent fluid in one pleura. Some 
time before his death, his respiration and circulation were much 
accelerated. 
The vomicae contained pus mixed with gangrenous sanies. 
In the blood obtained from the vena cava, inferior pus was de- 
tected. 
The preceding instances by no means comprehend the whole 
number in which I have found pus in the blood. In the detail I 
have rather been anxious to give examples of interesting varieties, 
than to increase the number by needless repetitions. 
It is satisfactory to add, that the observations of Dr. Davy tend 
to confirm the accuracy of those which I have just related. He 
detected pus in the blood of consumptive patients, after my gene- 
ral results had been submitted to him, but before I had turned my 
attention to the state of the blood in phthisis. He has lately in- 
formed me that he has found pus in the blood in seventeen in- 
stances after death, in sixteen of which there was declared sup- 
puration, and in one none could be detected : in the latter, the 
patient died of acute inflammatory disease. 
Before considering the conclusions to be deduced from the pre- 
