infectionINFEC'TION, n. [L. inficio.] The act of infecting, or the act by which poisonous matter, morbid miasmata or exhalations produce disease in a healthy body. The words contagion and infection are frequently confounded. The proper distinction between them is this. Contagion is the virus or effluvium generated in a diseased body, and capable of producing the specific disease in a healthy body by contact or otherwise. Marsh miasm is not properly contagion. Infection is any thing that taints or corrupts; hence it includes contagion, and any other morbid, noxious matter which may excite disease in a healthy body. Hence, Infection is used in two acceptations; first, as denoting the effluvium or infectious matter exhaled from the person of one diseased, in which sense it is synonymous with contagion; and secondly, as signifying the act of communication of such morbid effluvium, by which disease is transferred. |