422 RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS ON PYAEMIA. 
were preent, not merely in the purulent liquids, but in the 
blood. Under these circumstances, attention was directed 
from the effects to the poison itself. Soon after the opening 
of the Brown Institution, it was found that the practice of 
the hospital for animals was likely to afford the required ma¬ 
terial ; in short, that pyaemia occurred in dogs under circum¬ 
stances very similar to those which determined it in human 
beings, and exhibited similar symptomatical and pathological 
aspects. A series of experiments were therefore commenced 
in January last, having for their object to acquire a knowledge 
of the morbid poison, and particularly to discover by what 
conditions the variations of its intensity were governed. 
With reference to these experiments, Dr. Sanderson would 
not anticipate the complete account of them in the Report 
of the Medical Officers of the Privy Council, but would con¬ 
fine himself to giving an account of one series, and exhibiting 
the action of the pyaemic poison during life, and the post¬ 
mortem appearances; but before doing so, he would state 
shortly what he understood to be the signification of the term 
pyaemia. He then proceeded to say : 
“ The word pyaemia is apt to be used in somewhat different 
senses, according as the person using it has before him the 
medical or surgical aspect of the disease. To define it com¬ 
pletely we must, I think, take into account its mode of origin, 
its symptoms, and the anatomical changes which it produces ; 
not confining our attention to either of these to the exclusion 
of the rest. With this consideration in view I would com¬ 
prehend in my definition the following propositions : 
“ 1. Pymmia originates by the introduction into the living 
tissues, and eventually into the blood, of a poison which is 
itself a product of inflammation . 
“ 2. The action of this poison manifests itself in an altera¬ 
tion of the blood, and in disorder of the vital functions. 
The former of these is characterised by the presence of bacteria, 
and by change in the optical characters of the blood, which 
often becomes obviously more transparent and darker by 
reflected light than it is naturally. Of the latter, viz. the 
general disorder of the vital functions, the most prominent 
phenomenon is fever, which, in the more intense forms of 
the affection, is followed by collapse which culminates in 
death. 
“ 3. More remotely, the disease manifests itself in secon¬ 
dary suppurations, i. e. in the formation of metastatic ab¬ 
scesses, which may occur either in the internal organs or 
underneath the skin. The special character of these metas¬ 
tatic'(as I am in the habit of calling them) infective abscesses 
