BACTERICIDAL PROPERTIES OF COM- 

 MON ANTISEPTICS AND 

 DISINFECTANTS 



By H. LOTHE, D.V.M., and B. A. BEACH, D.V.M., 

 Madison, Wisconsin 



A new era in surgery began with the work of Lister, 

 who in 1867 studied the effect of disinfection upon 

 wound healing and introduced carbolic acid as a dis- 

 infectant. As the science of bacteriology developed, our 

 knowledge of disinfectants and disinfection increased 

 and will continue to increase and may change as new 

 bacteriological data are collected that change the 

 science of bacteriology. It therefore follows that the 

 final word on disinfection has not yet been said, hence 

 a conclusive statement of our knowledge of disinfection 

 cannot be given. Nevertheless, sufficient experimental 

 data have already been collected to determine certain 

 fundamental principles upon which scientific disinfec- 

 tion is based. Judgment as to the value of any disin- 

 fecting agent must, therefore, be made largely from a 

 bacteriological point of view. 



As we all know, the fundamental principle of disin- 

 fection is the destruction of bacteria by means of chem- 

 icals or heat (commonly called sterilization). In this 

 article disinfection by means of chemicals only will be 

 considered. Chemicals are used for these purposes : (1) 

 to render innocuous buildings and other inanimate ob- 

 jects that have come in contact with germs of various 

 infectious diseases; and (2) to prevent the entrance of 

 organisms to the animal body and to kill organisms 



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