STERILIZA TION AND DISINFECTION, 99 



Methyl Violet (Pyoktanin}. 



Restrains. Kills. 



Anthrax bacillus i : 70,000 i : 5000 



Diphtheria i : 10,000 i : 2000 



Glanders . i : 2500 i : 150 



Typhoid . i : 2500 i : 150 



Cholera spirillum i : 30,000 i : 1000 



Large numbers of both strongly and feebly antiseptic 

 substances have purposely been omitted from the above 

 lists, compiled from Sternberg and Micquel, as either in- 

 appropriate for ordinary use or as having been replaced 

 by better agents. 



The disinfection of the skin, both the hands of the 

 surgeon and the part about to be incised, is a matter of 

 importance. It is almost impossible to secure absolute 

 sterility of the hands, so deeply do the skin-cocci pene- 

 trate between the layers of the scarf-skin. The method at 

 present generally employed, and recommended by Welch 

 and Hunter Robb, is as follows : The nails must be 

 trimmed short and perfectly cleansed. The hands are 

 washed thoroughly for ten minutes in water of as high a 

 temperature as can comfortably be borne, soap and a brush 

 previously sterilized being freely used, and afterward the 

 excess of soap washed off in clean hot water. The hands 

 are then immersed for from one to two minutes in a 

 warm saturated solution of permanganate of potassium, 

 then in a warm saturated solution of oxalic acid, until 

 complete decolorization of the permanganate occurs, after 

 which they are washed free from the acid in clean warm 

 water or salt-solution. Finally, they are soaked for two 

 minutes in a i : 500 solution of bichlorid of mercury, 

 after which they are ready for use. 



Surgical dressings are generally sterilized by super- 

 heated steam, which, as has been shown, destroys all 

 germs. Ligatures and sutures of silk, gut, chromicized 

 gut, silkworm gut, etc., having been boiled, are kept 

 either in alcohol or in an alcoholic solution of bichlorid 



