602 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



failing to corroborate his original results, promptly reported the fact 

 before one of the biological societies. It was a striking example of 

 his scientific honesty, and it remained for someone else to point out, 

 on the basis of new facts relating to iodine, how it was that his original 

 interpretation had been nearer the truth than his later one. 



Another of his early studies was on intestinal resection and suture, 

 and he introduced a method of anastomosis of the bowel, based on the 

 distribution of the blood supply and on the correct placement of the 

 sutures, far superior to that of any of his predecessors. These two 

 subjects, the surgery of the thyroid and intestine, continued to engage 

 his attention to the end, and among his last publications was a mono- 

 graph entitled "The Operative Story of Goitre" published two years 

 before his death ; and another on the bulkhead principle of intestinal 

 anatomosis. 



His interest lay not in the number of cases he might operate upon 

 but in working at certain principles of surgery, and in the course of 

 his experiments upon the thyroid and parathyroid bodies, he hit upon 

 what is known as Halsted's Law, namely, that " a transplant of a 

 portion of a ductless gland will survive only when a physiological 

 deficit has been produced." 



On the opening of the hospital in 1889 he turned his attention to 

 questions of technique, and was among the first American surgeons 

 to grasp fully the principle of the new aseptic surgery. The intro- 

 duction of silver as suture material and as a covering for wounds be- 

 cause of its bactericidal qualities was due to him. He studied the 

 healing of an aseptic blood-clot in closed wounds. He introduced 

 gutta-percha in the form of " protective" as a dressing for open wounds. 

 He showed how silk could be safely buried in the tissues, an important 

 principle many surgeons are incapable of learning. He was among the 

 first to insist upon absolute blood-stilling in the course of operations 

 in days when operations were bloody affairs, and he introduced the 

 form of delicate pointed forceps for haemostosis now universally in use. 

 He also introduced rubber gloves into surgery in the early nineties, and, 

 being himself a painstaking rather than a brilliant or spectacular oper- 

 ator, it was long before gloves came into use in other clinics — indeed, 

 for years they were very much scoffed at as clumsy impediments to 

 manipulation. 



His operation for cancer of the breast revolutionized the treatment 



