90 INFLAMMATION, SUPPURATION, ETC. 



welcome Pasteur's demonstration that putrefaction, 

 like other true fermentations, is caused by microbes 

 growing in the putrescible substance. Thus was 

 presented a new problem : not to exclude oxygen 

 from the wounds, which was impossible, but to 

 protect them from the living causes of decomposi- 

 tion by means which should act with as little dis- 

 turbance of the tissues as is consistent with the 

 attainment of the essential object. . . . To apply 

 that principle, so as to ensure the greatest safety 

 with the least attendant disadvantage, has been my 

 chief life-work." * 



And, of course, the application of that principle 

 is not limited to the performance of the major 

 operations of surgery. It is in daily use in every 

 hospital, and in every practice all the world over, 

 for the safe and quick healing of whole legions of 

 injuries, "casualties," and minor operations. 



But what of Semmelweis, and his study of 

 puerperal fever ? Did he not, before Lord Lister, 

 and without the help of experiments on animals, 

 discover antiseptic surgery? His claim is urged 

 by those who are opposed to all such experiments. 

 And the answer is, that his work was lost just for 

 want of experiments on animals. If he could have 

 demonstrated, as Pasteur did, the living organism, 

 the thing itself, there in the tissues of an infected 

 rabbit, and in a test-tube, and under a microscope, 

 he might have stopped the mouths of his adver- 

 saries. He could not. He could only demonstrate 



* See also the admirable Life of Pasteur, by M. Vallery- 

 Radot. Translation by Mrs Devonshire, vol. ii., p. 20. 



