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

  • Lockwood, Charles Barrett, 1856-1914.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further report on aseptic and septic surgical cases : with special reference to the disinfection of materials and 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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    Reprinted for the Author from the British Medical Journal, July nth, 1896. SURGICAL CASES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DISINFECTION OF MATERIALS AND THE SKIN. By C. B. LOCKWOOD, F.R.C.S.Eng., Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Surgeon to the Great Northern Hospital. [The following is a continuation of the reports which have already ap- peared in the British Medical Journal (October 25th, 1890; May 28th, 1892; and January 27th, 1894). Again our standard of perfection is the absence of bacteria from the skin of the patient, from the hands of the surgeon and of his assistants, from everything which came in contact with the wound, and, finally, from the wound itself. The test adopted is a simple one. A scrap of skin, towel, sponge, and so forth is cut off and dropped into nutrient broth, which is afterwards kept at a tempera- ture of either 200 C. or 36° C; and a final opinion was not arrived at until the higher temperature had been used. If the broth remained clear at the end of a fortnight, it was assumed that what had been put into it was sterile. In the last report some experiments were cited to show that the minute quantity of the chemical which was always conveyed into the broth with the material did not mar the result. These experiments have been continued. A number of the broth tubes which had remained clear after skin, towel, sponge, and so forth had been put into them, were inoculated with bacteria. An abundant and rapid growth always took place, thus proving that the amount of chemical conveyed into the broth upon the material was quite innocuous.] I propose to begin this report with the experiments made upon materials. These are a useful control over those done with skin, with tissues, or with fluids from the wounds. Most of these experiments were done by Dr. Black Jones and Mr. J. Preston Maxwell under my superintendence. I am greatly indebted to those gentlemen for all their care and trouble. It is hardly necessary to point out the value of prolonged and numerous tests as evidence of the efficiency or inefficiency of the methods which we employ. Disinfection of Silk and Fishing Gut. Various sizes of twisted silk are used for buried sutures and ligatures. The silk is wound upon a reel or upon a microscopical slide, and boiled in water for twenty minutes or half an hour. When the silk is thick, or much lias been wound upon the reel the longer period is required. After having been boiled the silk is put into a bowl of carbolic acid lotion (1 in 40). None but the operator touches the silk, ligatures, or instruments. The silk was tested twelve times