The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1894-01-23
ESTABLISHED 1879
VALUE OF ANTISEPSIS
HOW SURGERY HAS BEEN ADVANCED
BY THIS PRACTICE.


of Sunstroke.
These last 20 years surgery has been
advancing at an almost vertiginous pace,
and its progress and improvement are
due to the universal practice of antisepsis
and to the adoption of proper dressings.
The most daring operations are now
crowned with success, and different Wis
cera which had previously been carefully
avoided by surgeons are treated safely
and to the welfare of the patients. 1t is
an every day occurrence to see the abb
dominal cavity opened either to remove
a tumor or tomake some operation on the
intestines. The brain is laid bare to free
it from some compression from which 1t
is suffering or to open an abscess and give
a free exit to the pus. Under all these
circumstances the surgeon intervenes
with perfect security when he has mi
nutely taken the necessary precautions
to protect the wound he creates from in
lection by germs.
These dangerous germs are both with
in the patients and about them, and for
this reason it is absolutely indispensable
to disinfect the spot that the operation
is to affect and also everything connect
ed with the operator, his instruments or
assistants. AS for the germs floating in
the atmosphere, some surgeons endeavor
to counterfeit their effect by spraying
antiseptic liquids about the room during
the operation. The point to be guarded
against above all others is infection of
the seat of Intervention, and this can be
accomplished by destroying the germs
that may have already invaded it or by
closing up all access to it on the part of
those that may be about it. The former
can be effected by the use of antisepsis
and the latter by asepsis.
Complications arising from firearm
wounds seem to result from the action
of germs which are not carried by the
projectiles, as might be supposed at first
thought, but by the patients clothing.
In one of the late meetings of the Societe
Imperio- Royale DIES Medecins de Vienne,
M. Habart reported the experiments he
had undertaken in this connection with
M. Faulhaber concerning the infection
of frearm wounds. These two investi-
gators, using regulation rifles, fired at
boxes of gelatin, of which some were
sterilized or covered with sterilized blot
ting paper, others surrounded with pieces
of old uniforms and others with pieces
of uniforms dipped in pure cultures of
staphylococci. In the first case the
track of the bullet remained asceptic;
in the second were found, in addition to
pieces of cloth, variety of microbes,
while in the third the boxes contained
nothing but staphylococci.
In short, bullet striking the body of
soldier or piece of shell entering his
flesh stands every chance of creating
an infected wound. 1t is therefore i'm
perative to treat all wounds in wartime
antiseptically, and we owe a great debt
to the different authorities who in time
of peace are preparing a sufficient stock
of packages of dressing to supply each
soldier or officer ON the day war may
break out. This small package of dress
ing with which each soldier is to be fur
nished is to be placed, in the French
army, in pocket specially prepared for
it and is certain to render great serv-
ices, whether used by the wounded man
himself or by the ambulance corps.
However temporary this remedy may be,
it will still have the advantage of sup
plying the regimental surgeon with al
most enough dressings for the first de-
mands on the battlefields without his
having to make use of his stores, and it
will rapidly place the wounds out of
reach of the danger of infection arising
from contact with clothing, hands or
the ground.
A German army surgeon, M. Koerfer,
has been testing the value of inhalations
of chloroform in the cerebro-spinal form
of sunstroke, and in the case of two sol
diers very seriously affected with uncon-
seriousness, commissions, hyper@sthesia
of the skin, hvid skin and weakened
pulse, the prolonged administration of
chloroform succeeded in putting an end
to all the symptoms. The favorable
effect of the chloroform showed itself
as soon as its use was commenced by
marked improvement in the pulse, but
the commissions did not cease altogether
until the narcosis had been kept up for
an hour and quarter in one case and
for quarter of an hour in the other.
The use of cold water and hypodernic
injections of ether, to which recourse
was had in the first case, where the
symptoms were particularly serious and
before the chloroform was tried, were
found to be powerless and to have no
other effect than to bring on or increase
the conclusive attacks each time they
were tried. With this patient M. Koer
fer also made an injection of two cent?
grams of morphine toward the end of
the chloroform seance, and when the
man began to come out from the effect
of the chloroform he fell asleep again
under the influence of the morphine, and
on awakening finally the convulsive at
tacks had entirely disappeared.
Chloroform acts in these cases by stop
ping the commissions which help to raise
the temperature of the body by lessening
the production of heat and also by facil-
itating the radiation of the heat of the
body. Hypodermic injections of ether
are given to prevent asphyxia, and caf-
feline administered in the same way has
a twofold purpose, to increase or re-es-
tablish the urinary secretion and to ton
ify the system in general In the flu
ture it will be well to bear in mind the
usefulness of chloroform in these very
severe cases of sunstroke. Herald.