The asceptic treatment of wounds / Tr. from the 2d German ed. by Alfred Theodore Rake.

  • Schimmelbusch, Curt, 1860-1895.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The asceptic treatment of wounds / Tr. from the 2d German ed. by Alfred Theodore Rake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    small doses will set up typical spasmodic fits in animals. Tetanus bacilli were found by Nicolaier in the surface- soil of inhabited districts ; at greater depths they be- come rarer; and they are most abundant in the dust of dwellings and in the mud of the streets. This explains how it is that wounds, which have been fouled with dust or mud, or have been made by a splinter from the floor, are particularly apt to be followed by tetanus. The wide distribution of tetanus bacilli would no doubt make it a much commoner disease than it is, if they were only able to grow in ordinary air. They must be thrust deep into the tissues, and not merely deposited on a superficial wound, in order to develop their fatal properties. As much light has been thrown on the etiology of many other contagious diseases of wounds, as on that of tetanus and erysipelas. The Staphylococcus pyogenes, different cultivations of which show different colours, a golden yellow, a pale yellow, or white, is now recognised as the cause of ordinary suppurative processes such as boils, whitlows, phlegmonous erysipelas and many cases of pyaemia. A common germ in more severe suppurative processes and and in fatal pyaemia is the Streptococcus pyogenes. The appearance presented by cultivations of this strep- tococcus and its shape so closely resemble those of the streptococcus of erysipelas, that many investigators re- gard the two as identical, and the difference between the diseases produced as depending on a difference in the parts affected. Other cocci, for example the Micro- coccus pyogenes tenuis (Rosenbach), have less often been found where pus is present. The appearance of a blue colour in pus, which is ob-