1917] on The Treatment of War Wounds 33 



tlie seed-plots implanted from the proximal end of the pipette would 

 have shown a larg^e assortment of different colonies. 



AVe learn from such experiments three lessons : first, that in the 

 uncorrupted serum in the distal region of the pipette only two species 

 of microbes from the wound can grow and multiply ; secondly, that 

 irf the corrupted serum in the proximal end of the pipette all the 

 microbes of the wound can grow ; and, thirdly, we learn from a com- 

 parison of the wounded man's serum with the normal serum that the 

 former offers more resistance to microbic growth, and is less easily 

 corrupted l)y the addition of pus. 



GauM of the Corruption of the Serum. 



Experiments of this kind clearly do not tell us the cause of the cor- 

 ruption of the serum. That corruption may be due to some chemical 

 substance contributed by the pus to the serum, or to something special 

 in the character of the bacteria implanted. This point we can clear 

 op as follows. We go back to our yery septic wound. We clean it 

 out carefully by syringing. That leayes us with a wound cavity 

 clean but still abundantly infected. AVe then take the little cupping 

 apparatus which is shown in Fig. 3. We apply it to the walls of tlie 



Fig. 3.— Lymph leech in position, showing technique for exhaus- 

 ting the air. 



wound, using light pressure. Then, puncturing the attached rubber 

 tube with the needle of a hypodermic syringe, we withdraw the 

 contained air, and leave our lymph leech in situ adhering by negative 

 pressure till the time for re-dressing the wound comes round. When 

 we now go back to our wound we find there two quite different 

 discharges. AVe have in the general cavity of the wound a thick pus 

 containing many broken-down leucocytes and pullulating with all 

 sorts of microbes. In the body of the lymph leech we have a nearly 

 clear lymph containing well-preserved leucocytes and only a very few 

 Vol. XXII. (No. ill) ^ d 



