UPON THE GENERAL SALUBRITY OF SURGICAL HOSPITALS 253 



At Bonn, also, I heard similar testimony. I learned from Professor von 

 Busch, who introduced antiseptic treatment into the cUnical hospital last year, 

 that some previously unhealthy wards had since quite changed their character ; 

 and that in some line airy wards, which were always very free from hospital 

 disease, the mode of healing of the wounds was something altogether different 

 from what it used to be. 



So much, then, gentlemen, for my continental experience. And now 

 I wish to say a few words as regards the infirmary here, where I have now been 

 at work for about six years. And, first, as to the conditions under which I am 

 working. The wards, as some of you have seen, are small and overcrowded. 

 These wards were never so severely tested as they have been since I came here. 

 There used to be, in the old High School building, two reserved wards kept 

 ready for the reception of erysipelas or other peculiar cases ; but, at the time 

 when I was appointed, twenty beds were taken off from the clinical surgical 

 department for the purpose of creating a new surgeoncy ; and, at the same 

 time, the two reserved wards previously kept empty were filled with patients. 

 That particular block of building has, therefore, been more severely tried than 

 ever it was before. The number of beds is so limited that there is always great 

 pressure upon them. When I came to Edinburgh from Glasgow, seeing the 

 beds so close, I had several of them cleared out ; but the result was, I found, 

 that the same number of patients were admitted ; and there always being a 

 considerable proportion who could walk about during the day, they were put 

 down on mattresses on the floor at night, so that the number of patients remained 

 as before ; and, as the wards continued perfectly healthy, I had the beds reintro- 

 duced. But, more than this, I have still the mattresses on the floor. If you 

 were to go into these wards sometimes at night, you would be surprised to see 

 how many ' shake-downs ' there are. We have, also, often two or three children 

 in one bed ; and altogether by these means, wliile I have lifty-five beds, I have 

 lately had seventy-one patients. During the time I have been here, there has 

 hardly been a day on which there have been as few patients as beds, although 

 any of you can see that those beds are not as distant from each other as they 

 ought to be, according to modern notions of what is requisite for the salubrity 

 of a hospital. 



Then there is another important respect in which my wards have been 



and I had to do battle on a large scale with pyaemia and septicaemia, till in May 1S7J I introduced 

 your antiseptic method.' ' Since that time we have constantly practised it with excellent results, wliich, 

 in truth, have been constantly improving ; for at first the procedure docs not always succeed, and every 

 man must pay for his schooling (muss Lehrgcld geben). Now I have arrived at the conviction tliat 

 your procedure is unconditionally secure, and that in e\crv failure the surgeon himself is to blame, and 

 not the method.' 



