THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 197 



entirely, left wards that were very subject to it before ;':and this, as far as can 

 be ascertained by the surgeons, from no other cause than the careful carrying 

 out of antiseptic treatment. The results of my own experience in this matter 

 in Glasgow were published nearly two years ago ; and I may repeat now what 

 I then said, that wards once among the most unhealthy in the kingdom were 

 converted into models of healthiness, simply as the result of antiseptic treatment. 

 A year ago I published equally satisfactory evidence regarding my practice 

 in the Edinburgh Infirmary for nearly a year.^ Another year has since elapsed, 

 and during the whole of my Edinburgh period — now almost two vears — in 

 wards containing nearly sixty beds, we have not had a solitary case of pvaemia, 

 whilst we are also entirely free from hospital gangrene and from er^-sipelas. 

 Yet in those wards the beds are placed much closer than is in accordance with 

 modern notions. At first I had them thinned ; but learning that patients were 

 placed on ' shake-downs ' for the night, and finding that, in spite of this arrange- 

 ment, which of course w^as the same in effect as if all had beds, the wards remained 

 perfectly health}^ I had the number restored to its original figure. Now I was 

 myself at one time house surgeon in those same wards for a year and a quarter, 

 and I need hardly say that the surgeon under whose care they used to be was 

 a man under whom things were managed as well as they could be with the 

 means then at a surgeon's disposal — I allude to Mr. Sj^me ; yet I may safely 

 say that such complete immunity from hospital diseases never existed in those 

 wards before the antiseptic system was introduced. 



Nor has such testimony been borne by myself alone. Professor Saxtorph, 

 of Copenhagen, in a letter which I communicated to the Lancet a year since,- 

 pubhshed most striking information as to a very large hospital previously 

 extremely liable to pyaemia, so that the smallest wounds often gave rise to it, 

 yet remaining for a year absolutely free from the disease, and, so far as he could 

 judge, from no other circumstance than the rigorous adoption of the antiseptic 

 system. Equally satisfactory evidence regarding the healthiness of hospital 

 wards brought about by this means has been given in one of the Blue Books 

 of the Navy by Dr. Bernard, of the Naval Hospital here. 



After statements of this conclusive character have been published regarding 

 what is generally admitted to be the most urgent medical question of tlie day, 

 when I consider the apathy with which they have been received in many cjuarters, 

 I cannot avoid being reminded of the language of Macbeth — 



Can such things be. 

 And overcome us like a summer's cloud 

 Without our special wonder ? 



* See pp. IJ3, 159 of this volume. ' See p. 156 ol lliis volume. 



