OCR Text |
Show ng What Is Gas Gangrene? O1 1 much has besil written and printed about poisonous war gases jfl that the new and horrible disease t kr.own as "gas gangrene" is supposed rj by most persons to be caused b ex- jj posure to gas clouds or emanations d- from gas shells. ii At the same time reading about the gas gangrene bacilli that do such frightful work they are puzzled to imagine im-agine how bacterial germs come to be associated with war gases. And no wonder. But the matter is K easily explained, for war gases and gas gangrene have nothing whatever inlr to do with one another Both are destroyers de-stroyers of human life, and that is their sole relation. j. Gas gangrene, happily, is a disease jjj virtually unknown in America The germ that causes it (if existent in the i; New World) is bo rare as to do no mischief. But in Franco and Belgium it ahounds. in the soil. The fighting men in those count ries are constantly in contact with the soil Their clothing and skins harbor the bacilli. Hence, when they are wounded wound-ed the germs are very likely to infect in-fect the wound, and. as a result, a virulent form of gangrene rapidly develops. de-velops. Suppose the case of a leg thus in fceted. The bacilli multiply at a tremendous tre-mendous rate, and generate a gas. If a bullet or shell fragment has made a puncture, gas escapes frobi the hole. It will take fire from a match. The limb, if amputated, may contain so much gas that it will float in water! In such a caEe death 6U011 folloWC. |