Antiseptic Surgery
treatment to kill germs in accidental wounds, and surgical operations. The use of antiseptic dressings in surgery has become universal. The deaths caused by wounds of all kinds have greatly decreased. In wounds received on the battle-field, the treatment has been especially successful.
As is known, the danger lies in inflammation and pus formation, which is caused chiefly by two varieties of germs, the staphylococcus pyogenes. The germ ANTI-TRADE itself does not do the harm, but it secretes a poison which causes inflammation and suppuration. By preventing the entrance of these germs into bullet wounds by the application of first-aid dressings, which soldiers carry with them and use as soon as they are wounded, and by the thorough antiseptic treatment of such wounds by surgeons, the inflammation and suppuration which formerly took so many lives have been most effectively prevented. In the World War the Carrelirrigating method, by which a wound was constantly laved by an antiseptic fluid, met with extraordinary success.