Report on pyaemia, and some allied affections / by Samuel Wilks.

  • Samuel Wilks
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on pyaemia, and some allied affections / by Samuel Wilks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    SOME ALLIED AFFECTIONS. By SAMUEL WILKS, M.D., In the present paper we have placed together all the cases of fatal pyaemia which have occurred ia Guy's Hospital during the last eight years, and in which post-mortem examinations have been made. From the consideration of these cases we think some points of interest may arise. We do not wish to extract from them any positive statistical inferences relating to the frequency and to other particulars of the disease, which can be obtained only by its study in the surgical wards; but at the same time, in a report which is spread over a number of years, on a disease so commonly fatal, some proximity to a result in these respects may be obtained. Thus, if we never witness cases of pyaemia on our post-mortem table after some forms of injury, and constantly see them after others, we may draw a just inference that the disease is more likely to occur from the one than from the other. So, in looking through our cases, we find that the deaths may be placed in two or three sections, according to their cause, and that their frequency after some particular injuries or morbid processes cannot be too strongly contrasted with their rarity after others. Thus we seldom observe pyiemia after superficial injuries during the process of healing, or after wounds resulting from simple operations, as removal of the breast or herniotomy ; whilst, on the other hand, a suppuration of the cellular tissue, whether