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Nearly the same story as with regard to anæsthetics has to be repeated for what are deemed so surely modern developments, asepsis and antisepsis. I have already suggested that Roger seems to have known how extremely important it was to approach operations upon the skull with the most absolute cleanliness.
He relies chiefly and this applies to the asylum physician also upon intestinal antisepsis, upon rest, upon baths, upon regulation diet, and habits of life.
There must be a sufficiently generous supply of sheets so that they can be changed every day, and the drawsheet as often as may be required. Nothing is so important to a good lying-in as to have a clean, well-ventilated room, and plenty of fresh bed-linen. Cleanliness is the first requisite to antisepsis, and this is the secret of avoiding puerperal fever.
They even boasted that the scars left after their incisions were often so small as to be scarcely noticeable. Such expressions of course could only have come from men who had succeeded in solving some of the problems of antisepsis that were solved once more in the generation preceding our own. With regard to their treatment of wounds, Professor Clifford Allbutt says:
Lloyd has compiled what is possibly the most extensive collection of cases of spinal surgery, his cases including operations for both disease and injury. White has collected 37 cases of recent date; and Chipault reports two cases, and collected 33 cases. Quite a tribute to the modern treatment by antisepsis is shown in the results of laminectomy.
Surgeons, ignorant of antisepsis, and careless nurses, spread the infection along, until in some instances it reached a virulence which burst into the dreaded "hospital gangrene." This dread disease was the scourge of all hospitals, especially military ones, all over the civilized world, as recently as our War of Secession.
Zimmerman, Atwell, and Allan report cases of rupture of the colon. Operations upon the gastrointestinal tract have been so improved in the modern era of antisepsis that at the present day they are quite common. There are so many successful cases on record that the whole subject deserves mention here.
Now, for the first time, the world KNEW, and medicine had taken another gigantic stride towards the heights of exact science. Meantime, in a different though allied field of medicine there had been a complementary growth that led to immediate results of even more practical importance. I mean the theory and practice of antisepsis in surgery.
Crystals of iodine as opposed to permanganate of potash for antiseptic he discussed. From that he branched into antisepsis as opposed to asepsis as a practical method in the field. "Theory has nothing to do with it," said he. "It's a matter of which will work!" It was all technical; but it interested her for the simple reason that Kingozi was really enthusiastic.
Asepsis and antisepsis simply mean cleanliness. The benefits of moderation have been known for thousands of years. Louis Cornaro, who died in 1566, wrote a delightful book on the subject. People know that it is necessary to be moderate, but they do not seem to realize the meaning of moderation nor is its value well enough implanted in the human mind to produce satisfactory results.
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