XXil INTRODUCTION 
glycerine, chlorine compounds, iodine, chloride of iron, coal-tar preparations, 
and even carbolic acid. But the methods followed in the employment of these 
substances were imperfect, and, not being founded on any precise knowledge of 
the causes of putrefaction, they failed to ensure the desired result. 
The method which Lister himself employed before he took up antiseptic 
work is thus described by Sir Hector Cameron, who was his dresser and house 
surgeon at the time he began his antiseptic work :— 
He was in the habit at this time of treating all recent wounds by the 
simple plan which had been for many years taught and practised by Mr. Syme 
in the Edinburgh Hospital. After the principal arteries had been secured by 
ligaturing them with well-waxed silk strings, and smaller bleeding-points were 
arrested by torsion as originally suggested by Amussat, two folded pads of lint 
were placed on each side of the lips of the wound so as to exercise pressure, while 
a larger piece of the same absorbent material was placed over these, and secured 
by a fairly firm bandage. Drainage was effected by bringing the ends of the 
long silk ligatures out at one or both ends of the wound, and the sutures used 
were of silver wire. This dressing was left undisturbed for several days, unless 
a complaint of pain or a quickened pulse demanded earlier interference. Occa- 
sionally, union by first intention occurred except in the tracks of the ligatures, 
but so long as these remained there was no security against the supervention of 
one or other of the many hospital diseases which were always present in the 
wards. More often the wound—whatever its original nature—inflamed and 
suppurated freely ; it was then treated either with water dressing covered by 
gutta-percha tissue, or poulticed with linseed-meal poultices. In either case, 
the coverings of the wound were frequently changed, and at each renewal the 
pus was squeezed out as thoroughly as possible (counter openings being made 
if necessary), and the wound well washed with a mixture of warm water and 
Condy’s Fluid, usually poured out of a kettle. Lister soon began to enjoin on 
all persons in his clinique the practice of scrupulous cleanliness, which was at 
that time by no means always a characteristic of surgical practice. The washing 
of hands was insisted on after dressing each individual case, and large piles of 
clean towels stood on the tables of his wards for the use of his dressers and nurses. 
In consequence of the reported results of some experiments on dogs by Polli 
of Milan, he tried at this time the free exhibition of sulphite of soda or potash in 
solution as a cure and also as a prophylactic of pyaemia and other septic diseases. 
Every patient operated on or admitted to his wards with a wound had this 
remedy administered to him in suitable doses from the very first, and it was also 
used largely in washing and dressing wounds. All these, and many other attempts 
to improve the salubrity of his wards, unfortunately availed little or nothing. 
Cameron ends his description of the treatment of wounds at that time as 
follows :— 
When I first became a dresser, the carrying out of such details was 
my daily occupation. Every wound discharged pus freely, and putrefactive 
changes occurred in the discharges of all, producing in the atmosphere of every 
surgical ward, no matter how well ventilated, a fetid sickening odour, which 
