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AN ADDRESS ON A NEW ANTISEPTIC DRESSING 



development of the coccus that produced acid fermentation. Cyanide of zinc 

 and mercury had for several days prevented all development. This was proof, 

 therefore, that the mercurial element in our compound was valuable, and that 

 we could not dispense with it. 



It may be thought an unsatisfactory thing that there should have been 

 any organism able to work its way thus through a gauze charged with our 

 antiseptic. But I may remark, in the first place, that, as above stated, we 

 tested the material exceedingly severely ; in the second place, that it was a long 

 while before the organism penetrated the gauze even for a short distance ; and, 

 in the third place, that penetration of micro-organisms through such a dressing 

 into wounds does not seem to occur in practice, seeing that in the year during 

 which I have used this antiseptic in my surgical work at King's College Hospital 

 we have had no single instance in which we have had any reason to suspect 

 septic change in the deeper parts of our dressing ; we have had no instance in 

 which deep-seated suppuration has occurred in an operation- wound made 

 through unbroken integument. If we have had any pus at all in such cases, 

 it has been from the surfaces exposed between stitches or at situations where 

 drainage-tubes have been inserted, where what I have termed antiseptic sup- 

 puration has occasionally shown itself, and even this in very slight degree. 

 Such being the case, I feel not only permitted, but bound to bring this material 

 under the notice of my professional brethren. 



As to the composition of this so-called double salt, it is for the present 

 uncertain. This much is already established : that the cyanide of mercury is 

 in very much smaller proportion to the cyanide of zinc than Watts' s Dictionary 

 would lead us to expect from a true double salt. But what the precise com- 

 position of the salt is we do not yet know. I am having it investigated by the 

 Pharmaceutical Society, who have kindly undertaken the work. 



There is another use for this material besides the charging of dressings. 

 The powder moistened with a weak solution of corrosive sublimate may be 

 rubbed into hairy parts, when it will convert the hairs into an antiseptic dressing. 

 Not long ago a medical friend of mine brought his wife to me with no less than 

 seven sebaceous cysts in the scalp, requesting me to remove them. Having 

 washed the hair with i to 20 carbolic-acid solution, I simply passed a comb 

 over each tumour in the line where I was about to transfix without shaving 

 at all ; and, after taking out the cysts, rubbed in some of the moistened powder 

 into the hair in the vicinity. I then applied a dressing of cyanide gauze, and 

 I was glad to learn that all the seven wounds had healed without disturbance. 



We have now in the hospital a case of psoas abscess, shown to be of spinal 

 origin, not only by the history of the case and the symptoms, but by the discharge 



