THE PRESENT POSITION OF ANTISEPTIC SURGERY 339 



perfectly trustworthy antiseptic dressing is a matter of life and death. And 

 whenever discharge is considerable, it is essential that the dressing be of a kind 

 which will not permit the development of septic organisms in it, although it 

 be saturated tliroughout ; and this can, I believe, only be attained by the use 

 of chemical antiseptic substances. 



I have for some time past employed for this purpose a combination of the 

 two cyanides of zinc and mercury, which appears to fulfil the requisite conditions 

 of antiseptic efficacy and due storage of the agent in spite of free discharge, 

 together with absence of irritating properties. Having already published on 

 this subject, I will not detain the members of the Congress with details regarding 

 it, further than to say that since the date of that publication Professor Dunstan, 

 of the London Pharmaceutical Society, has devised means by which the substance 

 can be prepared in a perfectly definite manner, and containing twice as great 

 a percentage of the cyanide of mercury as that which we have hitherto used ; 

 and, as I have ascertained that the cyanide of mercury is the more important 

 ingredient antiseptically, and also that its larger amount in Dunstan's material 

 does not make the salt irritating, we may fairl}^ regard the new preparation as 

 an improvement. And yet we have had no need to complain of this substance 

 in the form in which we have used it hitherto. Those who have followed m}' 

 practice at King's College Hospital during the year and a half in which this 

 dressing has been employed will agree with me that we have secured a constancy 

 of aseptic results which has more than ever justified the performance of operations 

 once quite unwarrantable. 



In thus referring to m}^ own work, I do so, believe me, in no boastful spirit ; 

 but in the hope of stimulating some of those whom I address on this memorable 

 occasion to more thorough earnestness in pursuit of the great objects of anti- 

 septic surger}-. 



