Disinfection and Antiseptics 151 
and should be admitted into all suspicious places. 
All infected materials, and especially bodies of animals 
that have died from disease, should either be burned or 
buried deep to prevent further infection. Dogs, crows 
and other animals frequently dig up and earry off 
parts of carcasses. Infectious material is often carried 
by streams of water, by infected stock-cars, or by litter 
which may have been in stock-cars. 
ANTISEPTICS 
Antiseptics, commonly called healing remedies, are 
substances applied to wounds or sores to assist in the 
healing process. They are used in solutions, or mixed 
with some fatty substance, as an ointment, or they may 
be dusted on in the form of a powder. Antiseptics 
possess no true healing properties; the healing process 
can be accomplished only by the living cells of the 
tissues. They only destroy or prevent the growth of 
germs. Bacteria, which gain entrance to sores and 
wounds, by growing and multiplying irritate the 
wound, injure and destroy the living cells of the animal 
tissue, and often form poisons that may be taken up 
by the blood and cause serious injury or death from 
blood-poisoning. If it were not for bacteria, no 
wound would be fatal, unless some vital organ were 
mechanically crippled; all wounds would heal with- 
out complications. In ordinary veterinary practice, 
wounds, abscesses and sores afford ideal conditions 
for the growth of bacteria, and unless carefully 
treated are swarming with them. It is to destroy these 
