Wounds and Surgical Diseases 73 



places; sometimes where the healthy, but 

 especially where sick people are crowded 

 together, as in hospitals. They are found in 

 small numbers floating with the dust in the 

 air, where dust lodges, and often in the 

 mouths and on the cloth- 

 ing of the people them- 

 selves. 



It is thus evident how j/* 



the wound diseases, such Jb -f* + 9* 



as blood poisoning, can 



- f. ., FIG. 9- STAPHYLO- 



come about, for wherever coccus PYOGENES 

 infective dust falls on the 

 open surfaces of the wounds or on any thing 

 which comes in contact with them, or if the 

 hands of surgeons or others who dress wounds 

 are not free from the dangerous bacteria these 

 may, if not destroyed, commence to grow, 

 and not only by the poisonous materials 

 which they form as they grow, interfere with 

 the healing of the wounds, but they may get 

 into the blood and be carried to various 

 parts of the body, there sometimes producing 

 fatal results. 



The modern surgeon, in the many beneficent 



