AN/EROBIC TREATMENT OF WOUNDS 221 



of soaked sphagnum 1 applied and bound on. Sterility 

 simply does not matter if the Reading bacillus is in- 

 troduced, though the usual precautionary injection of 

 anti-tetanic serum could not safely be omitted. Under 

 such treatment sepsis will get no chance, for the con- 

 trolling agent is already holding the field, and active 

 repair will proceed, even though the case be left 

 absolutely without attention for more than a week. 

 Instead of men reaching base hospitals at the lowest 

 ebb of vitality, they would be already well upon 

 the up-grade, all the advantages of which need no 

 emphasis. 



The progress of infection in the cases under treat- 

 ment has been carefully followed out, and it has been 

 invariably found that the infecting bacteria were 

 nearly, if not quite, as numerous when the packs 

 were taken out as when they were put in, although 

 the proteolysis of the necrotic matter which had been 

 their breeding-ground had put an end to the septic 

 conditions. What made this the more interesting 

 was the rapid drop in temperature and pulse, begin- 

 ning usually on the third day. The patient feels 

 relief, and the return of normal regularity of sleep 

 and appetite some time before the completion of the 

 proteoclastic cleansing of the wound, indeed just after 

 its commencement; and although the solution of the 

 dead tissue must be regarded as one of the principal 

 benefits of the method, it looks as if it were not indeed 

 the primary one, but that something more rapid takes 

 place as well. Take into consideration the view that 

 the bacterial toxins are albuminous, and it is evident 



1 Colonel Gray has recently found that packs of pure paraffin are just as 

 efficacious as Morison's B.I. P. P., which is as much as to say that the anti- 

 septics in that compound are without positive significance. This suggests, 

 though we have no direct proof of it, that the action of the Reading bacillus 

 may be traced in both these methods of procedure, which have the effect of 

 closuring a wound in an anaerobic manner. 



