34 WOUND TREATMENT 



fill results, for be it remembered that both aim at the 

 prevention of infection in wounds and thus endeavor 

 to promote healing in the shortest time possible. Briefly 

 speaking, the aseptic system aims at preventing the 

 access of pathogenic bacteria to wounds; it embraces all 

 the measures adopted to keep the wound aseptic, or free 

 from the ill effects of septic organisms, throughout its 

 entire course. Antiseptics, except for sterilizing the 

 patient's skin, the hands of the surgeon, or in the 

 process of sterilizing ligatures, are rigidly excluded, 

 and not permitted to come in contact with operation 

 wounds. None of the materials used, such as ligatures, 

 sutures, and dressings, contain antiseptics, but are simply 

 sterilized. The instruments are sterilized by boiling, 

 and are not placed in an antiseptic solution. 



Of course, the aseptic method can be applied only to 

 operation wounds made through unbroken skin into 

 non-infected tissues. The disciples of the aseptic school 

 term the methods in which antiseptics are employed, 

 either in solutions or dressings, as antiseptic methods. 

 Some even go further than this, for we find one surgeon, 

 Mr. Burghard, stating that the term antiseptic, when 

 applied to the treatment of wounds, "should be reserved 

 for those measures designed to combat sepsis already 

 present in a wound." 



The antiseptic school, however, claim that their meth- 

 ods are also aseptic, although as a means of precaution 

 they employ antiseptics in addition to the means of 

 securing asepsis. Sir Watson Cheyne, one of the ad- 

 vocates for this method, states: 



'^ Aseptic surgery is the method of treatment directed 

 to the maintenance of an aseptic condition in the tis- 

 sues of the wound presumably existing at the time of 

 operation. . . . But on the other hand, antiseptic sur- 

 gery has to deal with tissues which have already been 



