Wounds and Surgical Diseases 71 



of some sort got into them and so set up the 

 disease. 



What the particular thing was, whether 

 bacteria or something else, which so gained 

 entrance to the body, ho one knew. But the 

 surgeons did not wait until they should know 

 all about the cause of the trouble, but began 

 to apply to the wounds such materials as 

 would actually kill germs, or, at any rate, 

 keep the wounds free from putrefactive 

 changes. Carbolic acid, dissolved in water, 

 was found to be efficient in this way in washing 

 the wounds. 



Then, as it seemed more and more as if the 

 trouble were due to living germs falling upon 

 the wounds from the air with the dust, it 

 became the practice, when surgical operations 

 were being done or wounds dressed, to spray 

 carbolic in the air about the operator's hands 

 and over his instruments and upon the wounds, 

 and when the bandages were put on to seal 

 them in tightly, so that no germs could gain 

 access to the wound while the healing went 

 on. All this time the particular species of 

 bacteria which produced the trouble remained 



