Cadaverous Particles and Infection in Injured Man

Abstract : The changes that have occurred in the infections of burned patients, who serve as examples of extreme institution and show the same stereotypic, biphasic, multiorgan system responses as other injured patients (23). recapitulate the history of surgical infections (22). At the same time, those changes are premonitory of future epidemiologic changes in infections that will occur in other surgical patients. The cadaverous particles that have caused infection in burn wounds were, like those of Semmelweis, exogenous microorganisms the importance of which was evident only when the disease was identified and characterized, its pathogenesis defined, and the effectiveness of specific prophylactic and therapeutic intervention was documented by improved survival.