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[(name here)]

I know how dwarves get them, but I'm unclear on how they progress.

[mrtspence]

Picture a dwarf, warrior, mechanic, or some other incredibly useful profession. Now picture him dead. That's what infections do.

[RadPanda]

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Syndrome

[Uzu Bash]

EDIT: Doh, you said 'infection'.  Sometimes it kills, sometimes it lingers, sometimes does nothing but leave pretty yellow pus puddles. It can be cleaned in hospitals with water and soap, but can also be caused during suturing.

[Emily]

Well first your dwarf starts leaving piles of pus near the water sources, and then they die.

[Kipi]

They don't always die. One of my soldiers in my current fort got double infection (one in leg and one in arm), and those were never cleaned (no mention of cleaning of infection in treatment history, and the infections appeared after the initial cleaning the doctor did. Also, I have no soap). Now, after four years, the guy is still up and running, having killed two UB and several goblins since injury. And he is not infected anymore.

But what I gather it's rare that the dwarf survives from uncleaned infection, most of the time they die because of that.

[Mechanoid]

As time goes on, dwarves build up an invisible layer of grime on their body parts. Every time a dwarf cleans themselves with soap, or possibly steps into water/gets misted by water, the grime level of the cleaned body parts gets reduced (probably based on the strength of the soap) The more grime that exists on a wounded body part, the greater the chance and/or severity of infection. Unfortunetly, soap use and cleaning in general are currently bugged and/or iffy, causing dwarves to not properly wash themselves (or their fortress floors...) and that means that any infection is always deadly to a dwarf whos old (and grimey) enough.

There was a funny dev story a long time ago when healthcare was first getting redone about dwarves using soap to clean their eyes, because the eyelids didn't clean the grime that built up on the eye. (the eyelids were fixed to clean the grime, but that's assuming they havn't been torn off)

[Silent_Thunder]

There was a funny dev story a long time ago when healthcare was first getting redone about dwarves using soap to clean their eyes, because the eyelids didn't clean the grime that built up on the eye. (the eyelids were fixed to clean the grime, but that's assuming they havn't been torn off)

Found it. (Thank you TV Tropes)

Eyelids clean the eyes so you don't have to soap them off, but if an eyelid is torn off, I think they might soap the eyes.

[Quietust]

When a dwarf has an infection, they slowly bleed internally. If this blood loss is not overcome by the dwarf's recuperative ability (or some other factor), they will become "Faint" (with health status indicating minor blood loss), then "Pale" (major blood loss), and will finally succumb to infection and die.

[Uzu Bash]

Hm, I didn't know that. There must be some other determining factors, maybe intensity or location, infestation of the infection. I've seen 'slow to heal' dwarves, and adventurers, live perpetually with infections. And maybe soap mitigates it even when it doesn't always completely disinfect, because so far the survival rate is 100% for dwarves who have been washed but still left the hospital with infection.

[(name here)]

Same here. That was actually why I asked.