DETAILS OF ANTISEPTIC SURGERY 225 



in the carbolic lotion. But in private practice the plan which I have pursued 

 for several years is the following : The sponges, after being used for an operation, 

 are put into a vessel of water and left there till the fibrine in their pores has 

 been converted by putrefaction into a slimy liquid which can be readily washed 

 out. They are then squeezed in successive portions of water till they cease to 

 discolour it, and, after having been well wrung, they are thoroughly moistened 

 with the I to 20 watery solution of carbohc acid. The sponges after being so 

 treated have, very likely, a decided putrefactive odour clinging to them ; but 

 this is a matter of no moment. The presence of a little of the products of putre- 

 faction will do no harm if the causes of the fermentation have been destroyed. 

 And that such is the case is evident from the following considerations : The 

 sponge, being squeezed as dry as possible when applied, contains but little of 

 the solution of carbolic acid with wliich it was treated, and this is soon displaced 

 from the parts next the wound, or at least copiously diluted bv the effused 

 blood and serum, which are often in such quantity that the red liquid can be 

 wrung out of the sponge w^hen it is removed on the following daw If, therefore, 

 any septic ferment were present in an active state in the deeper parts of the 

 sponge, the bloody serum could not fail to putrefy, since there is certainh" not 

 a sufficient proportion of carbolic acid mixed with it to act as an antiseptic. 

 Yet, in point of fact, putrefaction never does occur in the sponge (provided, 

 of course, that all the proceedings have been, in other respects, conducted anti- 

 septically), and I cannot call to mind a single instance of such an occurrence 

 either in private or hospital practice. It follows that no active septic ferment 

 is present in the portions of such a sponge which become soaked with the serum. 

 Yet before the sponge was treated with the solution of carbolic acid it contained 

 such ferments in abundance ; for, not to speak of the residual putrid material 

 left after the often hasty and imperfect washing, the very water with which 

 it was washed teemed with septic ferments, as was clearly demonstrated some 

 years ago by Dr. Burdon Sanderson.^ How, then, had they been got rid of ? 

 They could not be all washed out like the carbolic acid, because, as will be shown 

 in the next paragraph, they are not matter in solution, but solid particles, which 

 must remain entangled in abundance in the porous material of the sponge. 

 The only other possible way in which they can have been disposed of is by the 

 action of the carbolic acid upon them. And thus we are led inevitably* to the 

 conclusion that this agent, applied in the form of a strong watery solution, 

 completely and permanently extinguishes the septic energy of putrefactive 

 ferments. 



That the septic ferments are solid particles, not material in solution, might 



' See Dr. Sanderson's paper in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 187 i. 



