On the infectivity of the blood and other fluids in some forms of septic disease, and the reputed occurrence therein of an increase of virulence in successive inoculations / by G.F. Dowdeswell ; communicated by M. Foster.

  • Dowdeswell, G.F.
Date:
[1883]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the infectivity of the blood and other fluids in some forms of septic disease, and the reputed occurrence therein of an increase of virulence in successive inoculations / by G.F. Dowdeswell ; communicated by M. Foster. 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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    The symptoms which are observed after the injection of small quan- tities of putrid blood into a rabbit, when primary infection occurs, are very constant, and similar in most; essential respects to those in the subsequent cases of transmitted infection, excepting that the inflam- mation at the seat of injection is more severe and extensive in the former than in the latter case, owing no doubt to the comparatively large quantity of septic* matter used. The period of incubation too is here very variable, in accordance with the uncertain toxicity of putrid blood; its duration is usually from twenty to forty, or sometimes sixty, hours, but if in specific infection an animal survi ves the latter period, to my experience, it invariably recovers. Putrid blood, how- ever, in the quantities here used may be toxical, whether fatally or not, owing to the chemical poison it contains in solution, the sepsin of Panum, Bergmann, and other writers, whereas in subsequent cases of transmitted infection, when infinitely smaller quantities of the blood itself are used,—the thousandth or the millionth of a drop or less,—it is either fatally infective or, where not so, no symptoms of disturbance can be recognised. In these latter cases the incubation period is remarkably constant, being in the great majority of instances from twenty to twenty-four hours. Beyond an extreme coagulability, which in this specific disease I have found invariable, in this differing from the observations of others, and frequently a great increase in the number of the white corpuscles of the blood, I have not recognised any constant change in the characters of that fluid nor in the form of the red corpuscles, as described and figured by Coze and Feltz, and as stated by others, in this case; and it seems to me that the appearances there described are often rather those which occur in normal blood from the methods of preparation, exposure to the air, &c., than constant pathological features. These authors, however, describe (op. tit., p. 67) filamentous processes developed from the red corpuscles, of the nature of which they are uncertain, and conjecture that they may be parasitical micro- organisms. This statement of theirs has not been noticed, as far as I know, previously. I have observed the same thing, as ali'eady recorded,f in the blood of septichsemic mice. These bodies, which I have investigated and fully described elsewhere,J are mere processes developed from the stroma of the red corpuscles. They may be produced artificially and are indicative of a pathological condition of the blood. The rapid coagulation of the blood upon death, often within a * I here use the term “ septic ” in its proper signification of “ causing putrefac- tion,” or accompanying it. t “ Qrly. Journ. Micros. Sc.,” loc. cit., p. 69. % lb., Vol. 25, January, 1881.