252 AN ADDRESS ON THE EFFECT OF THE ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT 



In Berlin, Professor Bardeleben, with one hundred beds under his care 

 at the Charite Hospital, has long introduced the antiseptic system. The hospital 

 used to be a very unhealthy one. Pyaemia was so frequent, that amputation 

 in the lower limb was almost certain death to the patient ; but, through anti- 

 septic treatment, this has for a long time past been entirely changed. Professor 

 Bardeleben informed me, at the time of the meeting of this Association in 

 London, that pyaemia was practically abolished from the wards, without any 

 other change than the introduction of antiseptic treatment ; and I found that 

 this same satisfactory condition of things continued at the time of my visit 

 this year. Erysipelas was also rare, and of a mild type ; and hospital gangrene 

 very uncommon. At the same time, I feel bound to express my conviction 

 that Professor Bardeleben would get still better results had he not been led, 

 on the score of economy, to substitute for our antiseptic gauze unprepared 

 gauze soaked with a watery solution of carbolic acid ; for here, the carbolic 

 acid being dissolved in a liquid, instead of being stored up in an insoluble medium, 

 the antiseptic and its vehicle are both displaced together by the discharge which 

 soaks into the dressing, and this involves great additional risk. In fact. Professor 

 Bardeleben told me that for very special cases he still used our antiseptic gauze. 



In the other great clinical hospital of Berlin, the renowned and veteran 

 surgeon Von Langenbeck had not until the present year seen his way to adopting 

 antiseptic treatment. He had professed admiration of various results he had 

 heard of ; but, as Professor Bardeleben said, it had been barren admiration. 

 But it was a singular coincidence, and one very gratifying to me, that, when 

 I caUed upon him, I found him preparing to perform his first operation according 

 to strict antiseptic principles. The case was one of tumour of the upper end 

 of the fibula ; and, considering the possibility of the wound communicating 

 with the knee-joint, he felt himself bound to use antiseptic treatment. This he 

 did with perfect faithfulness, in spite of the serious inconvenience of a most 

 unnecessarily wetting spray ; and, when the operation was concluded, he did 

 me the honour to ask me to put on the dressing. 



At Magdeburg, I found a great hospital, containing, on the average, one 

 hundred surgical patients. This hospital used to be noted for its unhealthiness ; 

 but I learned that, since the introduction of antiseptic treatment, an entire 

 change had come over it in this respect. Pyaemia has almost entirely dis- 

 appeared, hospital gangrene has gone, and erysipelas, when it occurs, is of 

 a very mild type.^ 



^ Dr. Hagedorn, the chief surgeon, was absent at the time of my visit ; but in a letter, which, 

 through accidental circumstances, I did not receive till after this address was dehvered, he describes 

 in full detail the change that antiseptic treatment has effected. From this letter I must content myself 

 with quoting two short passages. ' I have now been for twelve years chief surgeon to the hospital 



