Arizona republican., 1912-02-23

the result in most of the major cases. was blood poisoning.
 It was in 1S46 that the eminent surgeon. Warren. in the Massachu- sets General hospital, painlessly re moved a tumor from the neck of d man who had been put under the in fluence of ether by the dentist, Nor ton. The news caused great excite ment. and led Sir James Simpson of Edinburgh to introduce the use of chlorOform.
 How long road civilization has travelled since then is graphically in- cicated by the feat that the surgeons were called on to defend their pain less operations on religious grounds. It was insisted that to avert pain was to thwart the will of God. and Simpson himself was driven to de fend the innovation by calling atten- .tion to the fact that when God wish ed to remove the rib. He caused deep sleep to fall upon Adam. to save the parent of the race unnecessary rain
 But while the discovery of the pos abilities of anesthctcs had banished pain. surgery was still unsuccessful because of the almost uniform in- lection of the wound. Blood poison ing was regularly expected.
 "The opening of the abdomen, the chest or the skull" Prof F. S Lee of Columbia university remarks in his recent volume on scientific Features of Midern Medicine" was under taken only in extreme cases and was almost equivalent to signing the death warrant of the patient.
 That this condition no longer exists is due directly to the work of PaSteur as applied by Joseph Lister. then holding a professorship at Glasgow. Pasteur had shown that putrefaction was OccaSiOncd bV the growth of germs Is occurred to Lister that these germs that caused decay might be the source of the trouble from surgical wounds. So he eXperimented with carbolic acid dressings with marked success Antiseptic surgery thus dates from his work in 1867. The results of Listers experiments demonstrated that the gangrene, cry sipelas and other forms of blood poisoning that accompanied opera tiOns were due to bacteria introduced into the wound at the time of the cutting.
 It followed that all these troubles could be avoided by absolute cleanli- ness. As any one who has had eX- perience with an operation knows, the utmost scrupulousness is observed to insure freedom from bacteria. Every thing about the patient is thoroughly cleansed. The instruments used by the surgeon are disinfected. The sur geor wears sterilized gown and a sterilized head covering. The at tendants observe precautions hardly less elaborate. So the patient is safe guarded from every possibility of in lection.
 Through the development of anes- thetics and of cleanliness modern sur gery has gone on to the most bril- liant achievements. The stomach can he opened. wounds in it's walls re- paired, foreign bodies removed and new connections can be made be- tween it and the intestines A re- fractory liver may be overhauled and anchored in it's proper place. A de- 1 fective kidney may be taken out. Within recent years surgeons have even discovered that the beating l heart may be lifted from it's place. ! stitched up and put back.
 1 The body, of course. is simply a
 wonderfully complicated and delicate machine. Through the patient 1 achievements of science the surgeon has now become a highly skilled ma ! chinist, who overhauls it and makes
 repairs much after the fashion of an engineer of an ocean liner.
 1 To Lord Lister belongs the credit {, of doing some of the important pio
 neer work that has made possible
 these marvellous developments of the
 present day,-Kansas City Star