Dunglison defines septicæmia with a single word, septæmia. The same authority gives the following derivation and definition to septæmia: "From [Greek: sêptos], 'rotten,' and [Greek: haema], 'blood.' A morbid condition of the blood produced by septic or putrid matters."
Sanderson says: "What I mean by septicæmia is a constitutional disorder of limited duration, produced by the entrance into the blood-stream of a certain quantity of septic material. It must, therefore, be regarded less as a disease than as a complication, differing from pyæmia not only in the fact that it has no necessary connection with any local process, either primary or secondary, but also in the important particular that it has no development."21
21 British Medical Journal, Dec. 22, 1877.
Both Davine and Koch designate as septicæmic all cases of general infection from wounds in which no metastatic changes occur. "Birch-Hirschfeld limits the term septicæmia much in the same way as Sanderson. He describes as septicæmia those cases in which the disease results merely from the absorption of the products of putrefaction, and regards it merely as a process of poisoning, such as might arise from the injection of any other noxious chemical substance into the blood. Pyæmia, on the other hand, he considers a truly infective process, probably due to the entrance of specific organisms into the body. He would therefore include many of the cases described by Koch as septicæmia under pyæmia."22
22 Trans. Pathological Soc. of London, vol. xxx. p. 9.
Billroth defines septicæmia as an "acute general affection which arises from the taking up of various kinds of putrid substances into the blood, and it is believed that these putrid substances so change the quality of the blood that it can no longer fulfil its physiological functions."23
23 Lectures on Surgical Pathology and Therapeutics (trans. from 8th ed.), vol. ii. p. 41.
Heuter defines septicæmia as a fever caused by the entrance into the circulation of the products of putrefaction from local centres of decomposition. He draws no clear distinction between an infective and a non-infective form, but the affection he describes as pyæmia simplex or pyæmia without metastasis seems to include many cases which Davine, Koch, and others would include under septicæmia.24
24 Trans. Path. Soc. of London, vol. xxx. p. 9, 1879.
Having before us the views of some of the prominent authors who have written upon the nomenclature of pyæmia and septicæmia, we observe that the use of these terms is based either on known or imaginary morbid conditions of the body, more especially of the blood. It therefore seems that the first step toward determining the proper limit within which these terms can be employed consists in learning their accurate meaning, which is fortunately clearly shown by their derivation. The next step consists in the application of these terms to the morbid conditions which are described more or less completely by these words. It may be here added that there will be frequently required for a full and definite expression certain modifying words, and consequently we may properly employ such phrases as puerperal septicæmia, spontaneous pyæmia, etc.