The asceptic treatment of wounds / Tr. from the 2d German ed. by Alfred Theodore Rake.

  • Schimmelbusch, Curt, 1860-1895.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The asceptic treatment of wounds / Tr. from the 2d German ed. by Alfred Theodore Rake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    pathogenic for man. When germs of wound infection have been found in the atmosphere, as, for example, in the air of hospitals, these have been in a very small minority compared with other fungi; and it appears from the latest reports that while the air is an uncon- genial resting place for any bacteria, it is particularly so for the germs of wound infection ; and that those which unavoidably get into it quickly perish. One after the other these common fallacies have yielded before exact investigation, and little, in fact almost nothing, remains of Lister's original views on the significance of the germs in the air in the infection of wounds. The fate of his views in the ordeal of prac- tical experience has been that of other brilliant ideas; that which was true in them has crystallized out from the irrelevant and accidental, unaffected by the acces- sories with which it was introduced. Experience, con- firmed by bacteriological experiments, taught practical surgeons to attach less importance every year to the risk of infection by the air and to lay greater stress on the dangers of contact. First one operator and then another timidly left off the carbolic spray, and then the spray quickly disappeared everywhere, because experi- ence plainly and clearly showed its superfluity. And the same fate awaits the irrigation of wounds with antiseptics, a practice recommended by Lister in all cases, as a prophylactic against such germs as might happen to reach a wound from the air. Many operators were energetic in the practice of irrigation to justify the omission of the spray. But a clear proof that anti- septic irrigation is erroneous and has no place in the enlightened treatment of wounds, is afforded by the results obtained years ago by von Bergmann and other operators stimulated by his example. It is not neces-