The rules of aseptic and antiseptic surgery : a practical treatise for the use of students and the general practitioner.

  • Gerster, Arpad G. (Arpad Geyza), 1848-1923.
Date:
1891,
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rules of aseptic and antiseptic surgery : a practical treatise for the use of students and the general practitioner. 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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    CHAPTEE I. WHAT ARE SEPSIS AND ASEPSIS? It is not intended here to enter into an exhaustive exposition of the essence of suppuration and the whole complex of conditions known under the name of sepsis. It may suffice for the present to give a rough out- line of the views that prevail regarding the causation of the conditions in question. Albuminoid substances, such, for instance, as blood or blood-serum— in fact, all the tissues of the dead animal body—will become putrid under certain well-known conditions. These are, first, moisture ; secondly, a cer- tain temperature called warmth, for short; and, thirdly, the presence of living organisms, or fungi, named schizomycetes, better known under the name of bacteria and micrococci. If all these factors are present, the ani- mal substance in question will ferment or joutrefy. Absence of any one of these factors will be sufficient to prevent decomposition. To illustrate this proposition, we shall mention common facts. Fresh meat or fish, well dried, can be indefinitely preserved ; freezing and, to a certain extent, roast- ing will also prevent its spoiling; and, lastly, exclusion of micro-organisms by air-tight packing or sealing, after boiling, will insure preservation for an indefinite length of time. The active agents of decomposition are the micro-organisms, which will develop at once their disintegrating activity as the conditions favorable to their development (moisture and a certain temperature) are present. We then either thoroughly dry the substance to be preserved or jDroduce and preserve a very low or very high temperature in it, all of which will j)re- vent the development of fungi. Exclusion of the fungi is herein unneces- sary. The third mode of preservation is that employed in canning meats. They are first boiled thoroughly, then the vessel wherein this boiling was done is hermetically sealed while the substance is still very hot. Here we have a combination of first destroying the vitality of such fungi as are con- tained in the meat before boiling, and, secondly, exclusion of access of new micro-organisms to the sterilized substance. Note.—The most effective sterilizer is the actual cautery. It not only destroys all the nox- ious germs contained within the tissues, but at the same time provides these with an often dry and always hermetic seal against further infection. If the eschar and its vicinity be well dusted