18 DIGESTIVE GLANDS. 



of the operators, till a new physiological department, in which greater 

 space was allotted to the operative section, was added to the building. 



I take the liberty of drawing your attention to this, which, so far 

 as I know, is the first instance of a special section in a physiological 

 laboratory devoted to operations. Perhaps the example may give my 

 physiological colleagues some useful hints for the erection of new 

 institutes. 



The surgical section embraces the half of the upper storey a quarter 

 of the whole laboratory buildings. It consists of a series of rooms along 

 one side, in which the preparations for the operation as well as the opera- 

 tion itself are carried out. In the first room (Fig. 2 a) the animal is 

 washed in a bath and dried in a special drying place. In the next it is nar- 

 cotised, the site of the operation shaved and cleansed with an antiseptic 

 solution. The third is used for the sterilization of the instruments 

 and cloths, for the washing of the operators' hands, and the donning of 

 their overalls. The fourth and last is a well-lighted operating-room. 

 Into this room the narcotised and previously prepared animal is carried 

 (without a table) by the operators themselves. The laboratory attendant 

 is not allowed to go beyond the second room of the series. 



Separated by a partition-wall from these rooms, is a series of 

 cabinets, in which the animals are kept for the first ten days after the 

 operation. Each cabinet is provided with a large window and ventilating 

 arrangements, occupies about four and a half square metres of floor space, 

 and is more than three and a half metres high. Each is also heated with 

 hot air and furnished with electric lights. A passage runs in front of 

 these dog cubicles, shut oft' from the operating-rooms by massive tightly- 

 fitting doors. The floors of the department are all made of cement, 

 with gutters in each room. In the dog cabinets a water-pipe, with 

 numerous minute apertures, runs along the wall, by means of which 

 the floor can be copiously syringed from the corridor without entering 

 the room. The whole is painted with a white oil colour. 



The long series of operation- rooms constitutes the best protection 

 against the penetration of dirt into the last and most important room ; 

 for, although physiology is much indebted to the wisdom of the dog, it 

 would be in vain, when striving to attain surgical results, to count on 

 the assistance of this intelligent animal. It is only by the arrange- 

 ment of a long series of dirt-catchers, in the ordinary as well as the 

 surgical meaning of the word, that one can count on maintaining the 

 operative division at its optimum. Two years of work in this depart- 

 ment have not rendered it impure, judged by the application of our 

 surgical test the success of Eck's operation. When I call to mind the 

 results of operations carried out during the last twenty years in different 

 buildings, and always upon equally healthy material, with constant 



