The evolution of antiseptic surgery : an historical sketch of the use of antiseptics from the earliest times : lecture memoranda, American Medical Association, St. Louis, 1910.

  • Wellcome, Henry S. (Henry Solomon), Sir, 1853-1936.
Date:
[1910]
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Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: The evolution of antiseptic surgery : an historical sketch of the use of antiseptics from the earliest times : lecture memoranda, American Medical Association, St. Louis, 1910. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER IV Antiseptic Methods in Mediaeval Times In the early Middle Ages the teaching of the Greeks drifted southward, and the Arabian School added considerably to the knowledge of the period. Albncasis, the Arabian physician (a. d. 936-1013), in his treatise on surgery, recommends that a pad of cotton wool, soaked in rose oil alone, or mixed with an astringent wine, should be placed on a wound. “ If the wound,” he Arabian, . . observes continues, “ is found to be affected by the the effect of action of the air, an ointment should be l^^ound” applied until suppuration occurs.” The fact that Albucasis in the eleventh century recognised the evil of exposing a wound to the air is very remarkable, and he may be fairly regarded as one of the earliest pioneers of what is known as aseptic surgery to-day. The methods of the Arabian surgeons and those who graduated at the School of Salerno were followed by Avicenna, Avenzoar, Averrbes, and other famous surgeons of antiquity. The chief sub- dressing- 1 11 1 r' 1 1 r 1 r used at the stances advocated by the School ot Salerno tor school of dressing wounds were aloes, centaury, galls, fennel flowers and other astringents, some of which remained in use for this purpose as late as the eighteenth century. Another substance introduced by the Arab surgeons as a dressing for wounds, and which was employed for centuries afterwards in other countries, was the astringent gum-resin, called “ dragon’s blood.” The origin of its use for arresting haemorrhage was pro- bably due to its colour, as, according to the old doctrine of signatures, substances of the same colour or shape as organs of the body, or its secretions, had a beneficial effect upon them. From what is known of surgical treatment in Anglo-Saxon times, astringent substances, such as powdered galls, or the crushed leaves of some herb possessing styptic properties, were generally applied to a wound to arrest haemorrhage. The treatment