Researches on suppuration. Sect. 1. On the frequent presence and on the effects of pus in the blood, in diseases attended by inflammation and suppuration / by George Gulliver.

Date:
[1838]
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Credit: Researches on suppuration. Sect. 1. On the frequent presence and on the effects of pus in the blood, in diseases attended by inflammation and suppuration / by George Gulliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    XXV. Researches on Suppuration. By George Gulliver, Esq., Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards. Sect. I.—On the frequent presence and on the effects of Pus in the Blood, in diseases attended by Infamrnation and Suppu- ration.* IN the prosecution of an inquiry in which I have been long 1 engaged concerning Inflammation and Suppuration, I soon perceived the necessity of instituting a careful examination of the blood in these affections, and particularly in the different forms of inflammatory fever and hectic. The result has been the detection of pus in the blood in almost every instance in which there was either extensive sup- puration, or great inflammatory swelling without a visible de- position of pus in any of the textures of the body : and. the contamination of the blood by pus appears to me to be the proximate cause of the sympathetic inflammatory, sympathetic typhoid, and hectic fevers. Since the writings of Dr. Lee, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Arnott, of MM. Velpeau, Dance, and others, the profession has become familiar with cases in which pus has been found in the veins, particularly after surgical operations and in uterine phlebitis ; but although the humoral patho- logy has of late years begun to assume some of its ancient im- portance, I am not aware that any writer has attempted to demonstrate the dependence of the fevers under consideration on the presence of pus in the blood. Previous to a brief notice of some of the experiments and observations from which the results have been drawn, it may be proper to mention the means by which I have detected pus in the blood. The examination was very simple,—partly chemical, and partly by the aid of the microscope. Those who are acquainted with the minute constitution of the animal fluids are aware of the rapid and energetic action of water on the blood-corpuscles: now the globules of pus undergo no change after having been long kept in water; accordingly, if the suspected blood be mixed with this fluid, the blood cor- puscles will soon become invisible, and any globules of pus that may be present will subside to the bottom of the vessel, and may be easily seen, and their characters determined, with a good microscope. Ammonia instantly renders the blood- corpuscle invisible, while that of pus is acted on but slowly by the alkali; and the different action of acetic acid on pus * Read before the Royal Society, June 14, 1838; and now communicated by the Author. Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 13. No. 81. Sept. 1838. O