ADDRESS. 13 
was made to teem with microbes of different kinds by a very brief 
exposure to the atmosphere, and that the same effect was produced by 
the addition of a drop of ordinary water. But when I came to experi- 
ment with blood drawn with antiseptic precautions into sterilised vessels, 
I saw to my surprise that it might remain free from microbes in spite of 
similar access of air or treatment with water. I even found that if very 
putrid blood was largely diluted with sterilised water, so as to diffuse 
its microbes widely and wash them of their acrid products, a drop of 
such dilution added to pure blood might leave it unchanged for days at 
the temperature of the body, although a trace of the septic liquid undi- 
luted caused intense putrefaction within twenty-four hours. Hence I 
was led to conclude that it was the grosser forms of septic mischief, 
rather than microbes in the attenuated condition in which they existed 
in the atmosphere, that we had to dread in surgical practice. And at 
the London Medical Congress in 1881, I hinted, when describing the 
experiments I have alluded to, that it might turn out possible to disre- 
gard altogether the atmospheric dust. But greatly as I should have 
rejoiced at such a simplification of our procedure, if justifiable, I did not 
then venture to test it in practice. I knew that with the safeguards which 
we then employed I could ensure the safety of my patients, andI did not 
dare to imperil it by relaxing them. There is one golden rule for all 
experiments upon our fellow-men. Let the thing tried be that which, 
according to our best judgment, is the most likely to promote the welfare 
of the patient. In other words, Do as you would be done by. 
Nine years later, however, at the Berlin Congress in 1890, I was able 
to bring forward what was, I believe, absolute demonstration of the harm- 
lessness of the atmospheric dust in surgical operations. This conclusion 
has been justified by subsequent experience : the irritation of the wound 
by antiseptic irrigation and washing may therefore now be avoided, and 
nature left quite undisturbed to carry out her best methods of repair, 
while the surgeon may conduct his operations as simply as in former days, 
provided always that, deeply impressed with the tremendous importance 
of his object, and inspiring the same conviction in all his assistants, he 
vigilantly maintains from first to last, with a care that, once learnt, 
becomes instinctive, but for the want of which nothing else can compen- 
sate, the use of the simple means which will suffice to exclude from the 
wound the coarser forms of septic impurity. 
Even our earlier and ruder methods of carrying out the antiseptic 
principle soon produced a wonderful change in my surgical wards in the 
Glasgow Royal Infirmary, which, from being some of the most unhealthy 
in the kingdom, became, as I believe I may say without exaggeration, the 
healthiest in the world ; while other wards, separated from mine only by 
a passage a few feet broad, where former modes of treatment were for a while 
continued, retained their former insalubrity. This result, I need hardly 
remark, was not in any degree due to special skill on my part, but simply 
