The antiseptic system : a treatise on carbolic acid and its compounds : with enquiries into the germ theories of fermentation, putrefaction, and infection; the theory and practice of disinfection; and the practical applications of antiseptics, especially in medicine and surgery / by Arthur Ernest Sansom.

  • Sansom Arthur Ernest, 1839-1907.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antiseptic system : a treatise on carbolic acid and its compounds : with enquiries into the germ theories of fermentation, putrefaction, and infection; the theory and practice of disinfection; and the practical applications of antiseptics, especially in medicine and surgery / by Arthur Ernest Sansom. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    PREFACE. THERE is, I am well aware, a danger that one who writes concerning a single agent, however valuable, shall be written down an enthusiast. I trust, however, that the intrinsic evidence of this work will show that I have approached my subjedt in the spirit, not of an advocate, but of an enquirer. The extensive and numerous applications of Carbolic Acid in the Arts, and the fadt that no book devoted to a consideration of its action has yet appeared in this country, afford, I think, a sufficient apology for the appearance of this volume. In my investigation I have been largely indebted to the work of M. Lemaire; the knowledge of this, which contains 745 pages and dates from 1865, has been confined to but a few observers here. I have accepted M. Lemaire's conclusions in many, but not in all cases; whenever it has been possible I have applied the test of independent investigation. As I have said, I am no apologist for the agent on which I write. I have rather regarded it as the key which I have found to unlock a cabinet which has been difficult to open. I do not pretend that other keys will not fit the lock, nor that the cabinet may not be opened by more forcible means. I have entered at some length into the consideration of the Germ Theory of Fermentation and Putrefadtion, with the