XXXIV INTRODUCTION 
of lint soaked in a solution of carbolic acid and oil (r to 4) was inserted at one 
angle of the wound and retained for at least forty-eight hours. 
It will be observed that these early antiseptic dressings were not absorbent, 
and were therefore impervious to the discharges from the wound. Though the 
carbolic acid they contained could not be washed out of them, however great the 
flow of blood or serum in the early stage, it was constantly given off, thus pre- 
venting the entry of infective organisms. The fluids of the wound were, alike 
by the putty and the lac-plaster, shed from it in an antiseptic atmosphere main- 
tained between the dressing and the skin by the carbolic acid slowly and con- 
stantly liberated from the putty or lac. Under the lac-plaster the wound healed 
without a scab. 
The favourable reports of some surgeons on the use as an antiseptic dressing 
of oakum carefully selected and teased into a fine soft uniform mass next induced 
Lister to consider the advantages of a dressing which would absorb the fluids 
of a wound instead of distributing them. His previous objection to the use 
of porous dressings was founded on the observation? that the discharge, if at all 
free, washed out the antiseptic from the fibres of the material used and, by 
leaving over the wound a dressing devoid of any antiseptic, opened up the way 
for the penetration of putrefaction. In oakum, however, each fibre was imbued 
with the antiseptic (creosote) in an insoluble vehicle, so that the discharge could 
not wash the antiseptic out of the fibres any more than in flowing beneath the 
lac-plaster, to a narrow strip of which each individual oakum fibre might fairly 
be compared. 
While impressed with the advantages of an absorbent material thus thoroughly 
imbued with an antiseptic which would not be washed out of its fibres by the 
discharges, Lister preferred to devise a dressing in which the proportion of the 
antiseptic could be accurately adjusted, and free from certain minor practical 
drawbacks which attended the use of oakum. This led to the introduction 
of the gauze dressing, which in one form or another has since been and still is 
used all the world over, either charged with some antiseptic substance or sterilized 
by heat. Acheap muslin of open texture, known in the trade as ‘book-muslin ’, 
was charged with resin, paraffin, and carbolic acid. Resin, which is one of the 
principal constituents of ordinary oakum, holds carbolic acid with great tenacity, 
so that a mixture of one part to five does not, if applied to the tongue, produce 
any undue sense of pungency. The paraffin was added to obviate the objection 
that this mixture was very sticky, as well as apt to be irritating to many skins. 
The melted ingredients were mixed in the proportion of one part of the acid 
to four respectively of resin and paraffin, and the mixture was diffused through 
1 Vol. ii, p. 168. 
