Surgical pathology and principles / by J. Jackson Clarke.

  • Clarke, J. Jackson (James Jackson), 1860-1940.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical pathology and principles / by J. Jackson Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/482 (page 62)
    characters. ]\Iany of the putrefactive bacteria produce ptovuiines (Gr. ^ioTOci = corpse), which have the characters of alkaloids. Ptomaines, when they are of a poisonous character, are termed ionns (Gr. toxicon = for the bow = arrow-poison). Others pro- duce poisonous proteid bodies; when these are coagulable by heat they are termed toxalhumins, as, for instance, the poison- ous product of the diphtheria bacillus; when not coagulable by heat the products are termed proteins. If the general symptoms of a disease are produced by the absorption into the blood of the poisonous products unaccompanied by the living organisms the condition is termed septic intoxication (Gr. sepsis = fermentation or decay). If living organisms (either by the lymphatics or the veins) gain an entry into the blood- vessels and multiply there and in the tissues, the condition is one of general infection,-or septica;mia, one phase of which, marked by the formation of abscesses, is called pyaemia. Alco- holic intoxication affords an easy parallel with septic intoxication. An unicellular fungus, the saccharomyces, closely allied to the bacteria, produces by its vital action on sugar a toxic substance, ethylic alcohol. The latter, separated by various means from the fungus which generates it, is capable of producing the well- known effects on the central and peripheral nerves and other tissues and organs of the body. So in diphtheria, a bacillus growing on a surface where the local disease is in progress produces a toxalbumin which, absorbed into the blood, con- stitutes a septic intoxication, the evidences of which are fever, depression, albuminuria, paralysis of nerves, etc. Some bacteria produce ferments or enzymes, among which are several capable of splitting up proteids. Very minute quantities of such fer- ments absorbed into the blood may cause serious effects. As a marked example of septicaemia the effects of moculating a <ruinea-pig with anthrax bacilli may be adduced. If Imng spores of this organism are placed beneath the skin in the track of a minute puncture, twenty-four hours later the animal is dead or dying. The blood in the heart and in the vessels ot all parts of^the body is crowded with bacilli. , . , , . From a practical point of view it is of tlie lughcst im- portance to prevent the occurrence of a local septic infection,