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Pyaemia
 
 
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Pyaemia (or pyemia) is a type of septicaemia
Sepsis

Sepsis, is a serious medicine condition characterized by a whole-body Inflammation state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. that leads to widespread abscess
Abscess

An abscess is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue on the basis of an infection process or other foreign materials ....
es of a metastatic nature. It is usually caused by the staphylococcus
Staphylococcus

Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive Bacterium. Under the microscope they appear round , and form in grape-like clusters.The Staphylococcus genus include just thirty-three species....
 bacteria by pus-forming organisms in the blood. Apart from the distinctive abscesses, pyaemia exhibits the same symptoms as other forms of septicaemia. It was almost universally fatal before the introduction of antibiotics.

Sir William Osler
William Osler

Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet was a Canada physician.He has been called one of the greatest icons of modern medicine and described as the Father of Modern Medicine....
 included a three-page discussion of pyaemia in his textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine
The Principles and Practice of Medicine

The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Designed for the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine is a medical textbook by Sir William Osler....
, published in 1892.






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Pyaemia (or pyemia) is a type of septicaemia
Sepsis

Sepsis, is a serious medicine condition characterized by a whole-body Inflammation state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. that leads to widespread abscess
Abscess

An abscess is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue on the basis of an infection process or other foreign materials ....
es of a metastatic nature. It is usually caused by the staphylococcus
Staphylococcus

Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive Bacterium. Under the microscope they appear round , and form in grape-like clusters.The Staphylococcus genus include just thirty-three species....
 bacteria by pus-forming organisms in the blood. Apart from the distinctive abscesses, pyaemia exhibits the same symptoms as other forms of septicaemia. It was almost universally fatal before the introduction of antibiotics.

Sir William Osler
William Osler

Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet was a Canada physician.He has been called one of the greatest icons of modern medicine and described as the Father of Modern Medicine....
 included a three-page discussion of pyaemia in his textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine
The Principles and Practice of Medicine

The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Designed for the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine is a medical textbook by Sir William Osler....
, published in 1892. He defined pyaemia as follows:

"A general disease, characterized by recurring chills and intermittent fever and the formation of abscesses in various parts, all of which result from the contamination of the blood by products arising from a focus contaminated by the bacteria of suppuration."

Earlier still, Ignaz Semmelweis
Ignaz Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungary physician who discovered in 1847 that cases of puerperal fever, also known as childbed fever could be drastically cut if doctors Hand washing#Medical hand washing in a chlorine solution before gynaecological examinations....
 included a section entitled "Childbed fever is a variety of pyaemia" in his treatise, The Etiology of Childbed Fever (1861). Jane Grey Swisshelm, in her autobiography entitled Half a Century, describes the treatment of pyaemia in 1862 during the American Civil War
American Civil War

The American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several Naming the American Civil War, was a civil war in the United States....
.

Symptoms


The disease is characterized by intermittent high temperature with recurrent chills; metastatic processes in various parts of the body, especially in the lungs; septic pneumonia; empyema
Empyema

A pleural empyema is an accumulation of pus in the pleural cavity. Most pleural empyemas arise from an infection within the lung , often associated with parapneumonic effusions....
. It may be fatal.

Treatment

Antibiotics are effective. Prophylactic
Prophylaxis

Prophylaxis is any medical or public health procedure whose purpose is to prevent, rather than treat or cure a disease. Roughly, prophylactic measures are divided between primary prophylaxis and secondary prophylaxis ....
 treatment consists in prevention of suppuration.

Different types of Pyemia


arterial p. Pyemia resulting from dissemination of emboli from a thrombus
Thrombus

A thrombus , or blood clot, is the final product of the blood coagulation step in hemostasis. It is achieved via the aggregation of platelets that form a platelet plug, and the activation of the humoral coagulation system ....
 in cardiac vessels.

cryptogenic p. Pyemia of an origin that is hidden in the deeper tissues.

metastatic p. Multiple abscesses resulting from infected pyemic thrombi.

portal p. Suppurative inflammation of the portal vein.