18 ANTISEPTIC TREATMENT OF WOUNDS. 
greatest opportunity to come in contact with infectious germs, 
and the natural recesses are especially adapted to give the 
micro organisms a hiding place. In this regard the nail-bed 
and matrix of the nails can be looked upon as the most danger- 
ous lurking holes—nor should the small furrows and lines in 
the skin as well as the orifices of the sweat glands and the 
hair, be overlooked as shelters for germs. The parts of 
the operator’s clothing, which are brought nearest the 
wound (the coat sleeves) should be chiefly considered. The 
latter, on account of the porous material of which they are 
composed and also on account of the fact that in lying down, 
sitting, etc., they come in contact with various substances, are 
a regular collecting vehicle for fungi, and can on this account 
very easily bring about infection of a wound. 
3. FOREIGN BODIES. 
Formerly the influence of an injuring foreign body, as far as 
the healing of the wound is concerned, was explained thus: 
Smooth cutting or piercing bodies would produce a wound 
without contusion, and therefore would result aseptically, while 
dull, rough, splintering objects would cause contusion and 
would therefore produce healing that would not be aseptic. 
These conclusions were not based on facts, hence they are 
false. Not the contusion and the resulting necrosis are the 
causes of the deviation from the aseptic healing of the wound, 
but the fact that bodies with smooth surfaces are less often 
carriers of infectious germs, on account of the lack of loop- 
holes for the same, than the ones with fissured and rough 
surfaces; therefore the latter are more often the cause of an 
infection of the wound. By this is not meant that smooth sur- 
faces are not carriers of pathogenic germs. We know that it 
makes no difference whatever whether the wound is contused 
or not, the former heal with aseptic progress exactly the same 
as the latter, provided the injuring body is not infected. 
These foreign bodies differ from each other in regard to the 
germs ; they may carry not only in quantity but also in quality. 
Through the investigations of KOCH, GAFFKY, PAS- 
