126 EFFECTS OF THE ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT 



of September 25th contains a statement, copied from one of the Glasgow news- 

 papers, that ' the Dean of Guild is said to have computed that five thousand 

 bodies were lying in pits, holding eighty each, in a state of decomposition, around 

 the infirmary '} Just beyond the churchyard rises an eminence covered by 

 an extensive necropolis, which, however, from its greater distance, must have 

 comparatively little deleterious influence. When I add that what is called 

 the fever hospital,- also a long four-storied building, extends at right angles 

 to the new surgical hospital, separated from it by only eight feet, and that the 

 entire infirmary, containing 584 beds, stands upon an area of two acres, and that 

 the institution is almost always full to overflowing,^ I have said enough to show 

 that the wards at my disposal have been sufficiently trying for any system of 

 surgical treatment. Yet, during the two years and a quarter that elapsed 

 between the Dublin meeting and the time of my leaving Glasgow for Edinburgh, 

 those wards continued in the main as healthy as they had been during the 

 previous nine months. Adding these two periods together, we have three years 

 of immunity from the ordinary evils of surgical hospitals, under circumstances 

 which, but for the antiseptic system, were especially calculated to produce 

 them.* 



It may be well to mention in detail some facts regarding the comparative 

 frequency, before and after the period referred to, of the three diseases to which 

 surgical wards have hitherto been peculiarly liable — namely, pyaemia, erysipelas, 

 and hospital gangrene. 



And first of pyaemia. This fearful disease used to occur principally in 

 two classes of cases — namely, compound fractures and the major amputations. 

 In compound fracture, it was so rife just before the introduction of the anti- 

 septic system that I had one of the sulphites administered internally as a pro- 

 phylactic, in accordance with Polli's views, to every patient admitted with 

 this kind of injury, though I cannot say that we observed any distinct evidence 

 of advantage from the practice. But since I began to treat compound fractures 



^ I doubt if even my sense of the importance of the subject I am deahng with would have induced 

 me to enter into these disagreeable details, were I not able at the same time to bear my testimony to 

 the zealous manner in which the managers of the infirmary and the Town Council are exerting 

 themselves to correct the evils referred to. I understand that it is in contemplation to abolish entirely 

 intramural interment in Glasgow. 



" About half the wards of the fever hospital are used for surgical cases. 



^ The rapid increase of Glasgow has rendered the infirmary, in spite of considerable additions of 

 late years, quite inadequate to the wants of the population ; but this evil will shortly be remedied by 

 the construction of a general hospital in connexion with the new College. 



* The antiseptic system was commenced nearly five years ago, but was for the first two years 

 employed almost exclusively in compound fractures and abscesses, which form but a small proportion 

 of surgical cases, so that the system cannot be said to have been in operation for more than three years 

 with reference to the subject of the present paper. 



