r.2 rThe Treatment of War Wounds [^March 'J, 



mean tliat it lias not Ijeeii (.lenionstratcd tliat Carrel's treatment 

 aceomplishes what was impossible by the old system of syringing with 

 antiseptics and leaving the wound afterwards to fill with pus. The 

 inefficacy of that older treatment was attested by tens and hundreds 

 of thousands of control experiments. What I mean is, that we have 

 not in Carrel's work any control experiments with more potent and 

 penetrating antiseptics to negative the idea that with these one could 

 with less than 60 to 144 consecutive douches convert a light surface 

 infection into a negligible one. And again, we have not from Carrel 

 any control experiments with a well-thought-out physiological treat- 

 ment to negative the idea that one could achieve a similar sterilisation 

 by GO to 144 successive physiological attacks upon the microbes, 

 starting each time from an atryptic condition. 



If we would abide in the spirit of science, every unwarranted 

 assumption must go. We must not assume that when we have 

 successfully combated a surface infection by a series of 60 to 144 

 therapeutic operations we have reached finality. And much less 

 must we, from the fact that a treatment successfully combats surface 

 infections, infer that it is also an effective treatment for infections 

 which penetrate into the deeper tissues. Rather ought it to come 

 home to us that it is impossiljle that there should, for quite different 

 categories of wounds, i.e. for quite diverse conditions, be any one 

 routine treatment. 



[A. E. W.] 



