HISTORICAL. 11 
being innocuous and sufficiently disinfectant. The only car- 
bolized preparation that RANKE used was carbolized catgut. 
KOCHER had had experience with carbolic antisepsis 
inasmuch as he lost several patients in rotation by intoxica- 
tion ; besides he also wanted to establish an aseptic condition 
in infected wounds. That carbolic acid, especially for the 
latter purpose, was not suitable, even LISTER em- 
phasized and he substituted chloride of zinc, but as the latter 
has a caustic effect in concentration (8 per cent.), and thus 
hinders the primary intention, KOCHER tried to find out such 
a concentration, which would be sufficiently antiseptic without 
preventing healing by first intention. After many experiments, 
together with AMUAT, he decided on a 1 per cent. solution in 
infected and 0.2 per cent. solution of the remedy in fresh 
wounds. Besides he modified the process so far as to omit the 
spray, the same as was done by TRENDELENBURG, 
BRUNS, and BILLROTH ere this, though they otherwise 
strictly followed LISTER’S method. The carbolic acid was 
used only for disinfecting instruments while the ligatures were 
prepared in oil of juniper and preserved in a 95 per cent. solu- 
tion of alcohol. 
Notwithstanding these improvements in the technique of 
the methods, cases came up in which one or another remedy 
proved inadequate; besides the procedure was still too cir- 
cumstantial, especially the preparation and use of the disin- 
fecting fluids. MOSETIG-MOORHOF recommended a pro- 
cedure, which in view of LISTER’S claims, was easily adopta- 
ble for the practical physician. He found iodoform to be a 
substance which proves effectual, owing to the fact that it is 
insoluble in wound secretions, and through the perma- 
nent chemical assimilation it undergoes by contacting living 
animal tissues, it forms a store of disinfecting material in the 
wound, and thereby permanently destroys all possible germs. 
Therewith he maintained that the bandage, which otherwise 
had to prevent the intrusion of micro organisms into the 
wound, had not to be put on with so much precision. He con- 
. 
