3o6 AN ADDRESS ON CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE 



antiseptic action ; and when we use serum and corpuscles, instead of serum 

 only, we find that the sublimated wood-wool (which I should have said did 

 very well with the serum so far as the sense of smell indicates) fails completely. 

 The I per cent, sublimate-wool failed also ; the lo per cent., however, stood 

 the test perfectly, even with blood in substance. Now, as to our gauze made 

 with albumen associated with the sublimate, the sero-sublimate gauze. Such 

 a gauze, prepared with i part of sublimate to lOO of serum, stood the test 

 absolutely when tried with serum. It therefore proved itself superior to salicylic 

 and to iodoform wool. But with the blood in substance, how does it behave ? 

 The tube in this bottle contains a portion of the gauze treated with the cow's 

 blood, serum and corpuscles, and inoculated nearly a month ago in the same 

 potent manner to which I have referred, and you will observe that it has no 

 putrid odour. Really, then, this sero-sublimate gauze seems to stand the test 

 completely. I may say that, when tried with corpuscles and serum, our best 

 eucalyptus gauze failed utterly, so that everything that I have tried failed with 

 serum and corpuscles, except the stronger sublimate preparations and carbolic- 

 acid gauze. 



Then the question comes, how far may we go in the strength of our sublimate 

 combined with the albumen without causing irritation ? During the last three 

 weeks, my cases at the hospital have been dressed with this material. We have 

 used the kind of gauze which was tested in the above experiments, made with 

 I of sublimate to loo of serum, and also one made with i of sublimate to 50 of 

 serum. We find that the i to 50, in the majority of cases, has caused no irritation 

 whatsoever, but in a very few it has caused some irritation, which, however, 

 has disappeared, and the sores caused by the i to 50 have healed when the 

 I to 100 has been substituted for it. Therefore it looks as if we were very near 

 our limits, as if that prepared with i of sublimate to 100 of serum was trust- 

 worthy and unirritating, even to all skins, and that prepared with i to 50 was 

 unirritating to most skins. Now there is this to be observed for our comfort, 

 that the discharge both from wounds and from abscesses antiseptically treated 

 is a serous discharge, not a bloody one, except in the case of wounds during the 

 first twenty-four hours ; and even in the first twenty-four hours, except in 

 cases in which the dressing has to be taken down for reactionary haemorrhage, 

 the blood is always more or less diluted with serum. If, therefore, we have 

 a dressing which has stood our severe test with serum mixed with the full amount 

 of corpuscles, we are surely right in regarding it as trustworthy. 



Last Friday, I amputated at the hip-joint in a boy twelve years of age, on 

 account of a sarcoma of the lower half of the femur. The wound was exceedingly 

 vascular, and there was a great deal of bloody oozing in the first twenty-four 



