INTRODUCTION. 27 



1 704, contained a description of a new and secret method 

 of treating wounds, by which healing took place quickly 

 without inflammation or suppuration ; but it is to one of 

 old Scotia's sons, Sir Joseph lyister, that the everlasting 

 gratitude of the world is due for the knowledge we pos- 

 sess in regard to the relation existing between micro- 

 organisms and inflammation and suppuration, and the 

 power to render wounds aseptic through the action of 

 germicidal substances." l 



Lister was not the discoverer of carbolic acid nor of 

 the fact that it would kill bacteria; but, convinced that 

 inflammation and suppuration were due to the entrance 

 of germs from the air, instruments, fingers, etc. into 

 wounds, he suggested the antisepsis which would insist 

 upon the use of sterile instruments and clean hands and 

 towels; which would keep the surface of the wound 

 moist with a germicidal solution to kill such germs as 

 accidentally entered; and which would conclude an ope- 

 ration by a protective dressing to exclude the entrance of 

 germs at a subsequent period. 



Listerism, originated (1875) a few years before Koch 

 published his famous work on the Wundinfectionskrank- 

 heiten (traumatic infectious diseases) (1878), spread slowly 

 at first, but surely in the end, to all departments of sur- 

 gery and obstetrics. 



The discovery of the yeast-plant by Latour and 

 Schwann as the cause of fermentation, and the later dis- 

 covery by Bassi of the yeast-like plant causing the mias- 

 matic contagious disease of silkworms, had led Henle 

 (1840) to believe that the cause of miasmatic, infective, 

 and contagious diseases must be looked for in fungi or 

 in other minute living organisms. Unfortunately, the 

 methods of study employed in Henle' s time prevented 

 him from demonstrating the accuracy of his belief. 



"It would indeed have been difficult at that period to 

 satisfy every condition that he required to be fulfilled: 

 the methods now in use were then unknown, and have 



1 Agnew's Surgery, vol. i. chap. ii. 



