Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne.

  • Cheyne, William Watson, Sir, 1852-1932.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antiseptic surgery : its principles, practice, history and results / by W. Watson Cheyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    through the cotton wool around the door of the hot box. The fluid when poured from the flask into the glass mixes freely ^ith (his air, but no change is set up. And, lastly, the loosely- fitting glass cap and shade allow a free interchange of air, but aie so placed as to make sure that the air deposits its dust outside the glass, thus corresponding in action to Pasteur’s flasks with the bent necks. In spite of all these opportunities of admixture with the gases of the air, all sorts of fluids remain unaltered, while, on the other hand, the same liquids exposed freely to unfiltered air rapidly undergo fermentative changes. These experiments are of themselves an absolute proof that the gases of the air alone are unable to cause fermentative changes in organic substances. In 1874 l)r. Roberts1 demonstrated again that fresh milk and other substances could be prevented from putrefying if kept in a flask with a cotton-wool plug after having been pre- viously boiled. His method was as follows : An ordinary delivery pipette, having on it an oblong bulb capable of containing 30-50 cc., was sealed at one end, and the materials to be experimented on were then introduced into the bulb until it was two-thirds full (Fig. 10, a). The inside of the neck of the bulb was next wiped dry, and a plug of cotton wool was inserted about its middle. Lastly, the neck was drawn out above the plug and sealed in the flame (Fig. 10, b). When the bulb was thus charged and sealed it was weighted with a leaden collar, and submerged in the upright position (so as to pre- vent the wetting of the cotton-wool plug) in a can full of water. The can was placed over a source of heat and boiled for the re- quired time. The bulb was then withdrawn and, when quite cold, its neck was filed off above the cotton-wool plug (Fig. 10, c). Finally it was set aside in the upright position and maintained at a suitable temperature. By exposure to the heat of boiling water for from twenty to forty minutes Roberts was able to preserve those substances with which Schroeder and other observers had failed, viz., milk, pieces of meat, and egg albumin. In 1876 experiments were published by Professor Tyndall2 1 Philosophical Transactions, 1874. 2 Philosophical Transactions, 187G.