A treatise on the principles and practice of medicine : designed for the use of practitioners and students of medicine / by Austin Flint.
- Austin Flint I
- Date:
- 1884
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the principles and practice of medicine : designed for the use of practitioners and students of medicine / by Austin Flint. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
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![Algiers, further investigations are required to determine the exact source of the melanajmic pigment. Tlie pathological effects of the melanajmic condition cannot be considered as established. Frerichs supposes that tiie accumulation of the [ligment-granules and cells in different organs, may occasion obstruction to the circulation sulfi- cient to interfere materially with the functions of the organs. It is uncertain whether the cerebral phenomena—stupor, delirium, convulsions, or paralysis— observed in certain forms of pernicious fever, anr; to be referred to the accumu- lation of pigment in the brain, or not. Ecchymoses and spots of softening in the i)rain have been thought to be the result of capillary emboli lormed of ))igmentary granules and cells. Similar changes have been observed in ma- laria without melantemia. Septicaemia and Pyaemia. The diseases, py.Tsmia and septic;Bmia, will be considered briefly, as they belong to the domain of surgical, rather than of medical, patiiology. The study of the nature of these diseases and of their mutual relations, involves extremely complicated and unsettled questions. Of the many distinctions •which have been drawn between py;emia and septicaemia, the one generally recognized, and, by some, alone acce])ted is that, in the former multi|)le ab- scesses are present, and in the latter they are absent. As to the infectious agents in the two affections, there is the widest divergence of oi)inion. Some hold that the morbific principle is the same in both, and that septiciemia and pya:'mia are, therefore, identical diseases; but that in py;emia venous thrombi are formed, from which infectious emboli are detaclied, causing abscesses, while these emboli are wanting in septicaemia. An old and still prevalent theory is that septicemia, as the name implies, is due to putrid infection, and pyaemia to purulent infection. A further distinction maintained by some pathologists is, that the f)utrid material which causes septicaemia is a chemicid substance soluble in the blood, while the infectious agent in py.-emia is mole- cular, consisting of specific bacteria. It is probable that, embraced under the name septictemia, are a number of different processes, of which infection with decomposed material is only one variety ; but our present knowledge does not enable us to prove this multiplicity in man, still less to define the different processes. SepticcBmia—Most of the experiments and pathological investigations in- tended to elucidate the nature of septicaemia, are based on the assumption that septicaemia is due to infection with some poison contained in putrefying substances. It has been found that if animals be inoculated with fluid con- taining the products of decomposed albuminous substances, symptoms and pathological changes are induced analogous to those observed in certain forms of septic;emia in man. Since Pasteur rendered it pi'obable that the ferment of decomposition either consists of, or is generated by, bacteria, much labor has been expended to determine whether the poisonous principle in experi- mental septicaemia is a chemical substance dissolved in decomposed fluids, or living germs. Pauum^ and other investigators have succeeded in isolating from decomposed fluids a substance soluble in water, and which, when injected even in minute (piantity into the blood of animals, produces the symptoms of septicaemia. The name sepsin has been proposed for this substance. If de- composed fluid be entirely freed from bacteria by artificial means, it still retains noxious properties, although whether diminished in intensity, or not, is uncertain. While Panum admits that the poisonous material is produced by ' Panum, Virchow's Arcliiv, Bd. GO, p. 301, 1874.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21198135_0093.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
