Further report on aseptic and septic surgical cases : with special reference to the infection from the skin / by C.B. Lockwood.

  • Lockwood, Charles Barrett, 1856-1914.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further report on aseptic and septic surgical cases : with special reference to the infection from the skin / by C.B. Lockwood. 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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    FURTHER REPORT ON ASEPTIC AND SEPTIC SURGICAL CASES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INFECTION FROM THE SKIN. The following report upon aseptic and septic wounds is a continuation of that which was published in the Bkitish Medical Journal on October 25th, 1890. In that report no wound was called aseptic unless its sterility had been proved by the inoculation of culture media from it. This test has been continued, and, when nothing has grown upon the cul- tures, the wound has been called aseptic, and, I may add, the subsequent progress of the case has left nothing to be de- sired. The dangers and imperfections of treatment which permits of wound infection are self-evident. There is no plan which can allow the so-called harmless microbes to enter and at the same time keep out the harmful. Nor can we rely upon the vital resistance, phagocytic power, or microbe-destroying pro- perties of the fluids and tissues of the body. They are factors beyond control, whilst asepticism is not. Recent investigations show that few wounds can endure the stringent test of the inoculation of culture media. A wound which does not infect seems to be so unusual that it is worthy of being recorded. Bloch,1 who seems to have tested properly a great many wounds, found microbes present in almost every instance. He refers to upwards of forty-six cases, out of which only two were sterile. It must not on this account be inferred that his results were not good; but they did not come up to the highest standard. As a result of his work, this surgeon seems to take a pessimistic view of the possibility of asepsis. He thinks the skin is the source of contamination. Halsted3 has also worked in the same direction. His state- ments are not precise, but it is said that test tube inocula- tions made by us a few days after the operations from the sur- face of the new cicatrix, from the fine line of granulations, from the surface of the blood clot, from the tip of the gauze plug, and from the bottom of the sinus occupied by the plug, 1 Bloch, Revue de Chinirgie, 1800, p. 819. ■ * The Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports, vol. 11, No. 5, p. 308.