724 
DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY. 
Aseptic inflammation is no more nor less than the effort of 
nature to repair an injured tissue. The changes which the tis¬ 
sues undergo correspond precisely to the extent of the injury. 
It is in fact more of a physiological than a pathological process 
and is now described as regeneration rather than inflammation. 
Infective inflammation is one due, either primarily or sec¬ 
ondarily, to the intrusion of organisms. The changes of an in¬ 
fective inflammation depend upon ( i) the virulence of the in¬ 
vading germs, ( 2 ) the resistence the tissues are capable of offer- 
ing, and ( 3 ) the fertility of the soil invaded. 
Localization of Septic Organisms. 
The means by which infectious organisms become localized 
either in a wound or healthy tissue has been discussed by the 
earliest defenders of the “germ theory.” So far as traumata 
are concerned it has been repeatedly demonstrated that organ¬ 
isms within the blood channel readily find a fertile field for^the 
exertion of their pathogenic properties in a tissue that has been 
deprived of its vitality through injury. The encroachment of 
tumors and inflammatory swellings upon the lumen of blood 
vessels has also proven a cause of abscess formation in the same 
way, i. <?., by destroying the vitality of the tissue thus injured. 
Along the same line I might mention the oft-proven statement 
that the lesion of one bacteria may be the cause of a secondary 
infection. In his discussion on the etiology of tuberculosis 
Ivoch explains the presence of pus-cocci in the tubercular de¬ 
posits of the spleen and other organs by assuming that they en¬ 
tered the circulation and were arrested in the capillaries by the 
presence of the tubercular lesion. We thus see that it is possi¬ 
ble for a trauma to become infected from within. This form 
of localization interests us especially in our study of the etiol¬ 
ogy of such diseases as 
(a) Poll-evil. 
(b) Fistulae of the withers. 
( c ) Deep shoulder abscesses. 
( d ) Deep seated abscesses generally. 
(e ) The abscess of rhino-adenitis. 
In veterinary subjects wounds on the surface of the body, 
whether accidental or surgical, are indeed rarely contaminated 
with organisms from within. The patients upon which we op- 
eiate are rarely afflicted with the susceptibility or diseases 
which favor such infection, and therefore it is wound infec¬ 
tion from without that alone concerns us in our surgical opera¬ 
tions. Localization from without can take place only through 
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