AN ADDRESS ON THE EFFECT OF THE ANTISEPTIC 

 TREATMENT UPON THE GENERAL SALUBRITY 

 OF SURGICAL HOSPITALS 



Delivered in opening the Surgical Section of the British Medical Association in Edinburgh, August 4, 1 875. 



[British Medical Journal, 1875, vol. ii, p. 769.] 



Gentlemen. — I believe I can hardly more profitably occupy the time 

 allotted to me for an address in opening this section, than by bringing before 

 you some facts illustrative of the effect of antiseptic treatment, when strictly 

 carried out, upon the general salubrity of surgical hospitals. 



Six years ago, when writing on the very remarkable improvement which 

 had been brought about by ' enforcing strict attention to the antiseptic principle ' 

 in the wards of which I had charge in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, ' converting 

 them from some of the most unhealthy in the kingdom into models of healthi- 

 ness,' I ventured to express myself thus : ' Considering the circumstances of 

 those wards, it seems hardly too much to expect that the same beneficent change 

 which passed over them will take place in all surgical hospitals, when the principle 

 shall be similarly recognized and acted on by the profession generally.' ^ That 

 prediction, I think I may say, is now in course of fulfilment. 



I shall speak first of what has come to my knowledge with regard to some 

 foreign hospitals, and I will begin with Copenhagen, where Professor Saxtorph 

 long ago introduced antiseptic treatment ; indeed, I believe he was the first 

 to bring it into operation on the Continent. The large hospital of which he 

 had the charge used to be a very unhealthy one. Pyaemia was extremely 

 frequent, even after very small operations, such as amputation of a finger. 

 Pyaemia has vanished ever since the antiseptic treatment was introduced, 

 hospital gangrene has almost entirely disappeared, and er3^sipelas is nearly 

 unknown except as imj:)orted from the town. Professor Saxtorph writes to me 

 as follows : ' If you ask me what I have observed respecting the eft'ects of 

 antiseptic treatment, I ma}^ say that it has not modified, but completely changed 

 my principles of pathology and my surgical practice. . . . The word hospiialisni, 

 which some years ago found its way from Edinburgh to the Continent, no longer 

 terrifies us ; it no longer keeps us from performing operations in tlie infirmary, 

 and you seldom meet with a case that could bo called a case of ho<]iital disease.' 



' See Lancet, January 8, 1870 (see p. 1J3 of this volume). 



