Omaha daily bee., 1912-03-09

and Instruments is sufficient to prevent
Infection
The OLD and the New.
How great the change has been II is
not easy to realize To one who sees
the modern surgeon. rubber gioved, white
gewned, with everything about him
sterilized to the last degree, it is not
Of living surgeons an operating coat, too
worn and dirty for other use. was taken
TO the hospital and left there for years
A lecturer on surgery in famous med
lcal school, dead not many years. used
to say. half in earnest and half In Jest,
that he sometimes regretted the days
when a surgeon strOpped his knife on his
boot before he started TO operate.
Lister himself stuck firmly TO the faith
which he had founded in the warfare
between antlsepsis and ssepsis and he
kept firmly TO carbolic acid as the best
agent. though he himself soon abandoned
It's use in undiIuted form. AS recently
as 1906 he wrote:
Il cannot but think II happy circunl-
stance that the substance which EN-
ployed first In endesvoring TO employ the
antiseptic principle should have been so
admirably adapted for detergent pur-
poses. And il has grieved me to learn
that so many surgeons have been led to
substitute needlessly protracted and COM
pllcated measures for means so simple
and efficient"
II has been said that the Glasgow In
Urinary. where Listers most famous ex-
periments were conducted, had an III re-
pute as harborer Of post-operatiye dis
ease. Hickman J. Godlee, one Of the sur
geons in ordinary TO the king. In a re-
cent address on Lord Lister, bald Of Il:
The mortality from hospital diseases
was 80 frIghtfui that some OF the wards
had TO be shut up entirely. What
wonder that he O-ister) should have wei
coined the less interesting cases of sim
pie fracture and those without open
wounds and that the mortality from am
putations should have reached the APP
paliing number OF nearly 70 per cent al
most entirely from septic diseases" J,
A Notable Tribute.
To the medical mind there IL no bet
ter tribute to the wonderful change that
Lister wrought than the fact that the
same infirmary still stands. practically
with its surgical wards "as
free from septic accidents as the most
modern hospital In the land"
There Is no better example Of Lord
Listers paInstaising methods than the
long series Of experiments he conducted
to determine the best lisature for tying
arteries II had long been the custom TO
use silk or flax threads. and one Of his
recalls that II was the
habit Of the house surgeon attending
upon his chief TO carry In his buttonhole
skelns OF the thread ready for use, 4
proceeding that would horrify the mod
srn surgeon.
Lister hoped that his method would
do away with this and that properly
sterilisea lisature OF the right material
would be absorbed as the wound healed.
His first experiment was on a horse. Using
= silk iiEature, and the results were sue
cessfal. II was tried on . human being
with every outward appearance of sue
cess.
Later there came proof that the silk
thread had not been completely absorbed.
Then the surgeon began again, this time
trying a specially prepared catgut and
experimenting on a calf. Thia tlme re-
suits were better. but stil not, sallsfae-
tory. For tho greater part Of his long life
"a an active practitioner this sibjsst en-
gagged Lord. Listsrk attention. m did the
constant thought which he gave 70 tho
proper germicide and the best method
Of lis use at the time Of operation.
While Lord Listers great sift TO medi-
cine was the doctrine OF antisepsis. he
was In addition a great operator. Con-
fident OF preventing subsequent compli-
cations. he dared TO do many things that
surgeons before him had thought impos-
sible. IN operating for caucr OF the
breast and in correcting deformities By
STACKING the bono itself he went far be-
yond his predecessors.-New York Sun.