380 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
essentials of the modern aseptic technique which is actually quite dif- 
ferent from Lister’s antiseptic method. They showed that the dan- 
gerous or so-called pathogenic bacteria were conveyed to wounds by 
the hands of surgeons and nurses or by instruments and dressings. 
Boiling was discovered to be an effective means of sterilization. It is 
significant, however, that as late as 1883, 18 years after Lister’s dis- 
covery, as Haagensen and Lloyd (4) record, “In the discussion of 
a paper on Lister’s doctrine before the American Surgical Associa- 
tion, leading surgeons from many parts of the United States almost 
without exception condemned his methods, saying that they had 
tried them and had no success with them. The truth, of course, was 
that they had not tried them out with the requisite attention to detail, 
and so they failed.” 
At the Johns Hopkins Hospital there are two buildings of interest 
at this point in our story. One is the Halsted Clinic, which is the 
surgical building, and the other is Hampton House, the nurses’ home. 
At Johns Hopkins the first Professor of Surgery was William Stewart 
Halsted and at that time the nurse in charge of the operating room 
was Caroline Hampton. She complained that the solution of mer- 
curic chloride used for rinsing the hands before scrubbing, caused 
dermatitis. Dr. Halsted had the Goodyear Rubber Co. design a pair 
of rubber gloves for her. Their advantage from the viewpoint of 
protecting the patient from infection introduced by the operator 
became obvious and they have been used ever since. It is significant, 
however, that Dr. Halsted and Miss Hampton were married shortly 
after this glove episode. It has been suggested that, “This discovery, 
certainly one of the most important means of avoiding wound infec- 
tion, was perhaps not entirely the result of scientific zeal” (4). 
Halsted proved to be a quiet but effective force in this country in 
transforming surgery from a series of dramatic and somewhat danger- 
ous incidents into a less conspicuous, painstaking, and more successful 
method of treatment. He developed means for the control of hem- 
orrhage during operation which gave to the surgeon, in Halsted’s 
words, “the calm which is essential for clear thinking and orderly 
procedure at the operating table.” He, as well as Crile of Cleveland, 
taught the importance of gentle handling of the tissues. He devised 
operative techniques which are still followed today. 
Tt would be impossible to discuss all the advances which have been 
made in surgery since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The 
recognition of appendicitis as a disease entity and its surgical treat- 
ment have saved thousands and thousands of lives. The advances 
in operative surgery of the gastrointestinal tract, in operations on the 
female genital tract, in thyroid surgery, in orthopedics, in neuro- 
surgery, and, only very recently, in chest surgery have been truly 
