Gas Gangrene eMedicine Infectious Diseases

Description: Gas gangrene and clostridial myonecrosis are interchangeable terms used to describe an infection of muscle tissue by toxin-producing clostridia. In 1861, Louis Pasteur identified the first clostridial species, Clostridium butyricum. In 1892 and later, Welch, Nuttall, and other scientists isolated a gram-positive anaerobic bacillus from gangrenous wounds. This organism, originally known as Bacillus aerogenes capsulatus, was later renamed Bacillus perfringens, and then Clostridium welchii. The organism is now named Clostridium perfringens.
Ho et al 2009