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.

    37/290 (page 17)
    lowed just before an important operation, for as we have seen this always stirs up dust. Especial care must be taken that dry dressings filled with pus are cautiously dealt with. That the spray does not exert the favourable influ- ence on the air that Lister ascribed to it has been con- clusively proved; according to the investigations of Stern its purifying powers are quite insignificant. It is equally futile to attempt to make an impression on the number of bacteria in the air of a room by means of ventilation and currents of air. The quickest and most certain way of effecting this object is, according to numerous investigations, to allow the germs to settle. Stern's experiments show that an hour and a half after the air of a room has been impregnated with bacteria by the raising of clouds of dust, the heavier particles will have settled to the ground and the air be prac- tically clear; the lighter particles such as wool and cotton fibre, and the spores of fungi require a rather longer time. The best means therefore to render the air of an operating room free from germs, is to keep the room shut for several hours till all the germs have sunk to the ground. But in doing this, everything that is necessary for preventing the infection of a wound by the air, has been done ; for the rest our attention must be directed to the avoidance of infection by contact.