Cleansing, disinfection, and protection of the hands : an experimental and critical study / trans. with the special authority of the author by C.H. Watson.

  • Haegler Carl S.
Date:
1906
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Cleansing, disinfection, and protection of the hands : an experimental and critical study / trans. with the special authority of the author by C.H. Watson. 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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    time of relative calm, again set agoing the question of the preparation of the hands. Numerous investigators sought to prove that it might not be possible to render the hands sterile by means of the hitherto accepted methods, and the problem soon again became the theme of active discussion by gynaecologists and surgeons. The grounds on which this discussion was renewed were various. People had with time acquired the courage to avow that, in spite of careful attention to the rules of the aseptic system, all cases did not heal by first intention or “ without some reaction,” and that, after a long series of cases healing faultlessly by first intention, some cropped up in which unimportant or more severe complications of the wound made their appearance. And this, indeed, did not occur merely in isolated provincial hospitals; for an operator, who was ready to undertake a case in the happy security of the belief that nothing could go wrong with the wound under his hands, might well be sought for in vain. It is a common enough occurrence for a surgeon to remain in relative uncertainty, and to anxiously watch the temperature and general condition of the patient, during the days which follow an operation. It must, however, be admitted that a great improvement has taken place in the process of healing, in cases after operation. Puncture suppurations and small skin- abscesses are indeed complications which disquiet us, but more severe cases taking a pyaemic course can fortunately be counted as unusual, though by no means impossible. Schleich1 describes the tendency to obtain a rapid union by suturing under all circumstances as a “ mis- taken mania for primary union ” ; “ the suture is the vulnerable point of surgery,” says he. Undoubtedly the practice of packing a wound with gauze avoids a great number of complications—besides being an older practice—but this is again simply providing a convenient corner in which, under cover of “ the individual debility of the organism,” the sum-total of 1 Neue Methoden der JVundheilung, p. 58 et seq.