On the construction of operating theatres : with a description of the operating theatre of the new Glasgow Cancer Hospital / by George Thomas Beatson.
- Beatson, George Thomas, 1848-1933.
- Date:
- 1897
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the construction of operating theatres : with a description of the operating theatre of the new Glasgow Cancer Hospital / by George Thomas Beatson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![present state of our knowledge of the relations that micro- organisms bear to surgery. If we understand this we will be better able to express an opinion as to the weapons with which we should fight the foes and enemies of our wounds, deciding either in favour of the elaborate and expensive armament devised and “ made in Germany,” or standing by the simpler method of procedure that has received the title]of “ Listerian,” in honour of him whose genius first shed light upon the obscure and mysterious subject of the infection of wounds. One of the most important and radical changes that has taken place in our knowledge of the relationship of micro-organisms to surgical diseases has been our altered views on the influence of the surrounding air on “ wound infection. Twenty-five years ago, when I had the privilege of working under Lord Lister, in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, at a time when antiseptic surgery was in its infancy, I well remember that if there was any article in the antiseptic creed we implicitly believed in it was that the air was the source of wound infection, and that the active agents in it 'were the fungi that caused the ordinary processes of decom- position and putrefaction in all organic medico. I have lived to see this “atmospheric theory” abandoned, and Lord Lister himself admitting that it was erroneous. The evidence that has swept away this fallacy is twofold. In the first place, there is the bacteriological proof that the organisms which cause suppura- tion, erysipelas, and other forms of surgical blood-poisoning are of a special kind, and are not the ordinary fungi of putrefaction. In the second place, the air, when searched for these special organisms, was found not to contain them. In fact, it is very generally admitted that the air is the most unfavourable place for them, as they find in it neither the heat, moisture, nor nutriment that they need, and, indeed, some of them perish in its oxygen. Clinical experience further supports these facts. Many individual surgeons have found that their results under antiseptic surgery have been just as satisfactory in old buildings, with defective ventilation and apparently unsatisfactory atmospheric surroundings, as in the most recently constructed and equipped operating theatres. Personally, I can confirm this proposition, for during a period of two years I have operated in the small wards of our old cancer hospital with most excellent results, and with an almost entire absence of septic disease. It may be taken](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22381193_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
