SPHAGNUM MOSS: WAR SUBSTITUTE FOR 

 COTTON IN ABSORBENT SURGICAL DRESS- 

 INGS. 1 



By Prof. George E. Nichols, 

 Os born Botanical Laboratory, Yale University. 



[With 4 plates.] 

 INTRODUCTORY. 



Along in the late seventies of the last century a laborer at one of 

 the outlying peat moors in northern Germany accidentally sustained 

 a severe lacerated wound of the forearm. In the absence of any- 

 thing better to use his fellow workmen bound up the wound with 

 fragments of the peat which happened to be lying near, and it was 

 not until 10 days later that the man was able to secure surgical 

 attention. Imagine the surprise of the surgeon when, on removing 

 the improvised dressing, it was found that the injury had completely 

 healed. 2 



With this incident the use of sphagnum in present-day surgery 

 may be said to have originated. As a matter of fact, however, its 

 use in this connection is not a new thing at all ; it is merely a modern 

 and scientific revival of a very ancient practice. In parts of Great 

 Britain, according to Porter, 3 from time immemorial bog moss has 

 been used by country people in the treatment of boils and discharg- 

 ing wounds. In Scotland and Ireland it was employed many cen- 

 turies ago for practically the same purpose that it is being used 

 to-day : and moss was " at least recommended for use by army sur- 

 geons, both in the Napoleonic and the Franco-Prussian wars." 



We must acknowledge our indebtedness to the Germans, however, 

 for demonstrating the value of the sphagnum in the modern, anti- 

 septic methods of surgery. Following the incident which has been 

 mentioned above, investigations were set on foot as to the nature 

 and the properties both of the sphagnum and of the peat to which it 

 gives rise, and a number of papers were published in German medi- 



1 Text in part taken from a paper entitled " Sphagnum Moss and Its Use in Surgical 

 Dressings," published in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, Vol. 19, Septem- 

 ber, 1918. 



2 Tbis incident is related by Neubor (Arch. f. klin. Chir. 27 : 757-788. 1SS2), a German 

 surgeon who at that time was connected with the surgical clinic at Kiel. 



3 Porter, J. B. Sphagnum surgical dressings. Internat. Jour. Surgery 30: 129-135, 

 /. IS. 1917. Reprinted as a separate by the Canadian Red Cross. 



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