define asepsis
Asepsis is the state of being free from disease-causing micro-organisms. The term often refers to those practices used to promote or induce asepsis in an operative field of surgery or medicine to prevent infection. The goal of asepsis is to eliminate infection, not to achieve sterility. Ideally, a surgical field is sterile, meaning it is free of all biological contaminants, not just those that can cause disease, putrefaction, or fermentation. At present, there is no method to safely eliminate al