Details

Date1837
AuthorPiorry
ContributionCoined "septicoemie" (now septicemia) for putrid intoxication.
ReferenceAnon.
NotesDistinct from "pyoemie" (now pyemia) which is characterized by multiple abscesses and fever. It was thought that, in pyemia, pus escaped from suppurating peripheral lesions into the blood, thereby causing septicemia, with visceral lesions (also called putrid intoxication, especially when experimentally induced in animals). The distinction was not clear, and the subject was confused because the etiology was unknown. It now tends to be lumped together as "sepsis." It was the stage on which the germ theory of fermentation and putrefaction would be extended to the germ theory of human disease. Not cited in Garrison & Morton.
CategoryMiscellany
Pathogen ClassGeneral

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