Cases illustrative of the antiseptic use of carbolic acid / by Joseph Bell.

  • Bell, Joseph, 1837-1911.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases illustrative of the antiseptic use of carbolic acid / by Joseph Bell. 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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    ANTISEPTIC USE OF CARBOLIC ACID. NOUGH has. already been -written and published regarding the dieoiy -whieh is familiarly known as the “ germ theory,” and the principle on which carbolic acid has been brought into use (almost intirely through the exertions of Professor Lister in this country) lis an antiseptic. The very existence of the germs has been at times nffirrned and at times denied. I have no intention here to discuss .chat question at all, nor do I greatly care whether their existence Ibe granted me or not. Carbolic acid has been used by very many surgeons for very ■many purposes : as a disinfectant for foul sores, as a stimulant for sluggish ones, as means of destroying the spores, which are the pri- mary or secondary causes of many skin diseases, as an agent for tlhe destruction of vermin—such as the louse or the itch insect—as ;ia local ansesthetic of great value in chronic sores or open cancers j iven as a soothing injection in cases of chronic cystitis. In many of these methods of application it may prove to be useful; but wnth these, at present, I have nothing to do. So far as my own experi- ence goes, every application of carbolic acid, as a stimulant appli- :ation to a granulating surface, has acted as an irritant, and has not aided in cicatrization. It is of carbolic acid as an antiseptic agent that I wish now to speak, and I do not intend, nor would I venture, to take up the time of the Society by any theorizing, but rather to state the results of experience. Let me, then, briefly state these three—1. Princi- iple ; 2. Methods; 3. Results. I. Principle.—In using carbolic acid as an antiseptic, we do so with a double object, 1st, to exclude the air and its contents by I means of an antiseptic veil—we can do this in opening an abscess; :2d, to get rid of the septic and pyogenic effects of air which has Ibeen already admitted, as in our treatment of compound fractures, ( excisions of tumours, and amputations. II. Methods.—When describing the different cases I am briefly ' to bring before you, I will notice what was done to each; but it will simplify matters if I first show the different preparations of caibohc acid which we have been working with;—and the Society will remember that the manipulative part of the treatment is still in its