LANCASHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 525 
A method that enables the surgeon to lay open the abdominal cavity, 
break down adhesions existing between the ovarian sac, abdominal walls, 
bowels, omentum, and uterus, secure with ligature bleeding vessels, and 
by means of sponges remove from these organs and cavity all blood, 
serum, and other foreign matter, without producing “ septic peritonitis ,” 
is, to say the least of it, a mighty triumph for modern antiseptic 
surgery. 
Professor Lister, on hearing from Professor Tyndall about air optically 
pure, tied a piece of cotton wool to the nozzle of a pair of bellows, and 
on examining the current of air after passing through the wool, and, 
finding it free from organisms or particles, he determined to try cotton 
wool as a dressing. It answered very well until the discharge soaked 
through, when putrefaction occurred throughout the entire mass of the 
moistened part down to the wound, even within twenty-four hours. It 
is only when dry that cotton wool can arrest the progress of microscopic 
organisms, which have ample room to develop among its meshes when filled 
with a putrescible liquid. This proves that pus, blood, and dead tissues do 
not putrefy through the influence of atmospheric gases, but through the 
particles of dust, which may be prevented entering a wound by filtering 
the air, or destroying them by means of an antiseptic agent. Professor 
Lister’s method of procedure in his antiseptic treatment is to wash with 
carbolic water, 1 to 40, all instruments, sponges, operator’s bands, and 
the part to be operated upon. He next produces a spray (composed of 
water containing the acid in proportion 1 to 40), with which he envelopes 
the operation. In case of the spray failing him, he has what he terms 
a guard—a cloth soaked in carbolic-acid water, with which he covers it 
until such times as the spray apparatus is again brought into play. Any 
arteries that may require ligaturing *he uses the carbolised catgut, 
which possesses the advantage of not acting as a foreign body; being an 
animal substance it is absorbed. It was universally believed, and is still 
by many, that when you ligature any internal structure, as a blood¬ 
vessel, that sloughing of the distal portion must ensue, but latterly it has 
been proved by practice, by direct experiments, and by post-mortem, 
examination, that if the ligature be cut off short, and guarded against 
the putrefactive process , such a result is almost unknown ; skein of four 
threads absorbed in a week ; skein of twelve threads in from ten to twelve 
days. Assuming the operation to be completed, the wound is wrapped 
in seven or eight folds of antiseptic gauze, being a loose cotton fabric, 
the fibres of which are impregnated with carbolic acid, securely lodged in 
insoluble resin, to prevent it losing its antiseptic properties; over this is 
placed a layer or covering of hat lining. Carbolic acid itself does not 
assist the healing of a wound; and in wounds treated in this way there 
is a copious serous discharge, which is removed by means of an antiseptic 
iudia-rubber drainage tube or some threads of the catgut, which are left 
protruding in a dependent part. 
In his record of cases thus treated he mentions a case of psoas abscess 
in a man aged twenty-seven, who, from the age of eleven, had had antero¬ 
posterior curvature of the spine, and that he evacuated between fifty and 
sixty ounces of thick pus, with lumps of curdy material, and several 
spiculae of cancellated bone. The dressing was changed every four or 
five days, when the serous discharge became slighter. He is now per¬ 
fectly recovered and a healthy man. This is only qpe of several, whilst 
under the ordinary treatment they are generally followed by hectic or 
irritant fever and death. For operating in aneurism and hernia it reduces 
the risk to a minimum, whilst joints and synovial sacs and bursae can be 
opened with impunity. 
