THE ANTISEPTIC SYSTEM IN SURGERY 47 



convincing. We know from the researches of Pasteur that the atmosphere 

 does contain among its floating particles the spores of minute vegetations and 

 infusoria, and in greater numbers where animal and vegetable Ufe abound, as 

 in crowded cities or under the shade of trees, than where the opposite conditions 

 prevail, as in unfrequented caves or on Alpine glaciers. Also, it appears that 

 the septic energy of the air is directly proportioned to the abundance of the 

 minute organisms in it, and is destroyed entirely by means calculated to kill 

 its living germs — as, for example, by exposure for a while to a temperature of 

 212° Fahr., or a little higher, after which it may be kept for an indefinite time 

 in contact with putrescible substances, such as urine, milk, or blood, without 

 producing any effect upon them. It has further been shown, and this is particu- 

 larly striking, that the atmosphere is deprived of its power of producing decom- 

 position as well as organic growth by merely passing in a very gentle stream 

 through a narrow and tortuous tube of glass, which, while it arrests all its solid 

 particles, cannot possibly have any effect upon its gases ; while conversely, 

 * air-dust ' collected by filtration rapidly gives rise simultaneously to the develop- 

 ment of organisms and the putrefactive changes. Lastly, it seems to have 

 been established that the character of the decomposition which occurs in a 

 given fermentable substance is determined by the nature of the organism that 

 develops in it. Thus the same saccharine solution may be made to undergo 

 either the vinous or the butyric fermentation, according as the yeast plant or 

 another organism, described by Pasteur, is introduced into it.^ Hence we 

 cannot, I think, refuse to believe that the living beings invariably associated 

 with the various fermentative and putrefactive changes are indeed their causes. 

 And it is peculiarly in harmony with the extraordinary powers of self-diffusion 

 and penetration exhibited by putrefaction that the chief agents in this process 

 appear to be ' vibrios ' endowed with the faculty of locomotion, so that they 

 are able to make their way speedily along a layer of fluid such as serum 

 or pus.^ 



Admitting, then, the truth of the germ theory, and proceeding in accor- 

 dance with it, we must, when dealing with any case, destroy in the first instance 

 once for all any septic organisms which may exist within the part concerned ; 

 and after this has been done, our efforts must be directed to the prevention 

 of the entrance of others into it. And provided that these indications are 

 really fulfilled, the less the antiseptic agent comes in contact with the living 



^ See Pasteur's papers in the Comptes Rendus, vols. 1. li. lii, Ivi. also a report by Milne Edwards 

 on experiments performed by Pasteur before a committee of the French Academy ; Aunales des Sciences 

 Naturelles, March and April 1865. 



' I have seen vibrios, so minute as to be only just discernible with the higiicst power of an excellent 

 microscope, shoot across the field of view with a velocity that astonished me. 



