Antiseptic surgery : an address delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital : with the subsequent debate to which are added a short statement of the theory of the antiseptic method, a description of the materials employed in carrying it out, and some applications of the method to operations and injuries in different regions of the body, and to wounds received in war / by William MacCormac.

Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Antiseptic surgery : an address delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital : with the subsequent debate to which are added a short statement of the theory of the antiseptic method, a description of the materials employed in carrying it out, and some applications of the method to operations and injuries in different regions of the body, and to wounds received in war / by William MacCormac. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    PEEFACE. The Antiseptic method initiated by Professor Lister fifteen years ago occupies at present so prominent a position in surgical practice as to compel the attention of all practical surgeons; and the time has surely arrived when its pre- tensions, and the theory on which these pretensions are founded, may claim a definitive expression of opinion. Foreign surgeons, especially the Grerman ones, will say that this is already done; but in England there is by no means the same unanimity on the subject. It was with an object of this kind I accepted the request of the Hon. Secretary of the South London Branch of the British Medical Association, to prepare a paper on the sub- ject. Because of the limited time, only a portion of the address could be delivered; but it was published in full in the ' British Medical Journal' two days afterwards, and the object for which it was written was accomplished by the interesting debate which followed, in which so many sur- geons of eminence took part. It did not occur to me to give either the address or the debate any further publicity. Mr. Spencer Wells, however, whose own contribution is of such great interest, suggested h iV^