A STUDY OF SEPTIC GERMS. 
603 
the presence of a morbid element in the blood, caused by a 
local infection with general but no local symptoms. Senn 
says “ True sepsis is looked upon as general infection from 
some local source, unattended by any gross, pathological 
change.” Pyaemia is a morbid condition of the blood arising 
from local infection with general symptoms and the presence 
of multiple abscesses. Senn says “ pysemia is not a disease by 
itself, but its occurrence depends upon the extension of a sup¬ 
purative process from the primary seat of infection. The dis¬ 
tant or metastatic abscesses contain the same microbes which 
are found in the wound secretions, or the abscesses from 
which the general purulent infection took place.” 
The early opinions regarding septicaemia were, that it was 
caused by the absorption into the blood of some putrefying 
animal matter, and that pyaemia was caused by the absorption of 
pus into the blood. Pyaemia and septicaemia were synony¬ 
mous terms. 
Osteomyelitis is caused by some point in the bone becom¬ 
ing necrotic and from a general source of infection, locating 
at that point, producing an abscess, within the structure of the 
bone. 
Puerperal fever owes its origin to a septic infection enter¬ 
ing the general system through the uterus, producing a gen¬ 
eral process of septic invasion. 
The experimental evidence of different eminent bacteriol¬ 
ogists tends to prove that the same germs may produce all 
these diseases. 
The history of the germ or microbic origin of Septicae¬ 
mia, pyaemia, osteomyelitis, and puerperal fever began with 
Rindflesh, in 1866, who made the first reliable investigations. 
He found bacteria in abscesses. Klebs, in 1872, initiated a 
new era in the etiology of septic diseases, arid differentiated 
between septicaemia and pyaemia, although he claimed that 
putrid and septic infection were the same. Rosenbach, in 
1884, found the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus in three cases; 
in two of the cases gangrene appeared in which he found the 
streptococcus pyogenes. Chauveau and Galtier attributed 
the production of leucomaines to the germ present. 
