On pyaemia : read before the Medical Society of University College, November 25th, 1852 / by Joseph S. Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On pyaemia : read before the Medical Society of University College, November 25th, 1852 / by Joseph S. Gamgee. 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.

    7/32 (page 7)
    yellowish masses due to infiltration of the lung substance with pun, as proved in many cases by this fluid exuding from them on pressure. Frequently the lung substance for about half an inch around is of deep red colour, non-crepit- ant and sinks in water : in many cases again, it is only at a small part of the confines of the abscess that the red hepatization exists; ami the lung tissue is not uufrequently found crepitant and otherwise healthy in the immediate neighbourhood of one of these puriform deposits. As to abscesses in the muscles, it has been stated by Ncla- ton* that they are comparatively rare; and that, when they exist, the muscular fibres are sharply cut around the pus- containing cavity, which appears to be the result of the softening down into pus of the fibres amid which it exists. With reference to the first jatrt of this paragraph, I am dis- posed to doubt its accuracy, and to regard the muscles as a rather favourite seat of these deposits ; but possibly the frequency with which I have found them there is the result of accident in my brief experience : certain it is, how- ever, that the pus is not always collected in circumscribed cavities, for it is sometimes diffused pretty uniformly U-tween the interfascicular cellular tissue, without the least tendency to circumscription, much less to the formation of a cavity. It may have been observed, that I have frequently made use of the term purifonn fluid, instead of pus ; and as my doing so has not been the result of caprice, it is necessary that I should state my reason. 11 was in the summer of 1861, that 1 first heard of the purulent depositions in pytvmia being destitute of true pus-corpuscles, and abound- ing in granular corpuscles, in which no such thing as the characteristic nucleus of the pus-cell was to be seen. This was made known to me by my friend Mr. Joseph Lister, as * KU aun, 4< r*»l;oh*fiiu < iuivurt-'icsU-. t 1ft, p, lea.