312 AN ADDRESS ON A NEW ANTISEPTIC DRESSING 



its antiseptic operation, prevents it also from acting so powerfully on the human 

 skin. And thus the union of sal ammoniac with corrosive sublimate had the 

 double advantage of rendering it both more efficacious antiseptically and much 

 less irritating. 



Hence I was at first much pleased with sal alembroth. But it soon appeared 

 that there were certain disadvantages attending it. These depend very much 

 upon its excessive solubility. It is essential for a satisfactory antiseptic dressing 

 that the antiseptic should not be readily washed out of it by the discharge. 

 Sal alembroth is so exceedingly soluble that it is washed out with the greatest 

 ease ; thus we were always, even if we used large masses of sal-alembroth gauze, 

 in fear that when the discharge was copious the antiseptic would disappear, 

 say, within the first twenty-four hours, and then the septic mischief would 

 have an opportunity to enter. There was another disadvantage from this 

 great solubility. When the discharge entered a mass of the sal-alembroth 

 dressing it dissolved out the alembroth from it, passed into another part of 

 the dressing, and there took up another portion of the sal alembroth, and so 

 went on from part to part of the dressing, until, if the discharge was copious 

 and the dressing large, as it must be when the discharge is copious, before the 

 discharge got to the edge of such a dressing it became so concentrated a solution 

 of the sal alembroth as to be highly irritating. We have seen, for instance, 

 after the removal of the mamma, when the first dressing was changed on the 

 following day, that there has been over the scapula and the neighbourhood 

 a huge blister. No doubt that was only a temporary inconvenience. We never 

 had the discharge again so great as in the first twenty-four hours, but still it 

 was a great inconvenience. 



Such being the disadvantages of sal-alembroth dressing, I was disposed 

 to seek for something better. I may say that I myself have never published 

 anything in favour of sal-alembroth dressings ; I have never been satisfied with 

 them. It has leaked out that I have used them, and they have come into 

 extensive employment, but never with my published sanction. 



In the course of the following year I made various experiments in the hope 

 of rendering sal alembroth more useful in different ways, with which I need 

 not trouble you, but without much success. In February 1886 my attention 

 was drawn by Mr. Martindale of New Cavendish Street, to cyanide of mercury 

 as possibly a valuable antiseptic, and, if so, having this advantage, that it did 

 not coagulate albumen. I therefore proceeded to make experiments with 

 cyanide of mercury, and I found, indeed, that in inhibitory power it was remark- 

 ably efiicacious. I have said that with blood-serum sal alembroth or bichloride 

 of mercury is required in about i-i,oooth part. I found that the cyanide of 



