PART II. 



THE INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND THE 

 SPECIFIC MICRO-ORGANISMS. 



CHAPTER I. 



SUPPURATION. 



SUPPURATION was at one time looked upon as a normal 

 and inevitable outcome of the majority of wounds, and 

 although bacteria were early observed in the purulent dis- 

 charges, the insufficiency of information then at hand led to 

 the belief that they were spontaneously developed there. 



From what has already been said about the evolution of 

 bacteriology and the biology and distribution of bacteria, 

 the relationship existing between bacteria and suppuration, 

 and, indeed, between bacteria and disease in general, is 

 found to be reversed. Instead of being the products of 

 disease, we now know that the micro-organisms are the 

 cause 



With this altered point of view came the question, Whence 

 come the micro-organisms that cause disease? The wide 

 distribution of bacteria in the air naturally led surgeons to 

 look upon it as the source of all infection, and to make most 

 strenuous, though mistaken efforts to disinfect it, that it 

 might not contaminate wounds. 



The development of antiseptic surgery, and the extremes 

 to which the application of germicides was carried, became 

 almost ridiculous, for not only were the hands of the opera- 

 tor, his instruments, sponges, sutures, ligatures, and dress- 

 ings kept constantly saturated with powerful and irritating 

 germicidal solutions, and the wound subsequently covered 

 by dressings saturated with germicides, but by means of 



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