Remarks on a case of compound dislocation of the ankle with other injuries : illustrating the antiseptic system of treatment / by Joseph Lister.

  • Joseph Lister
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on a case of compound dislocation of the ankle with other injuries : illustrating the antiseptic system of treatment / by Joseph Lister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dressings are removed, a single drop of serum were to be pressed out by the movements of the limb and then re¬ gurgitate into the interior, after being exposed even for a second to the influence of septic air, putrefaction would be pretty certain to occur. The skill required to guard against this risk during the first few days, before the wound has consolidated, used to be a serious drawback to the treatment. But the difficulty and uncertainty arising from this cause have been changed to facility and security by a most simple means—the employment of a syringe, the nozzle of which is inserted beneath the mar¬ gin of the lac plaster, and, as this is raised, a stream of weak watery solution of carbolic acid (l to 40) is made to play upon the wound till a piece of calico, soaked with the same lotion, has been placed upon it by an assistant, as a temporary security until the plaster is re¬ applied. Any examination of the wound that may be desired is made with freedom through the transparent solution thrown over it by the syringe, the wound bein never left for an instant without an antiseptic guard. The cloths outside the lac plaster adhere to its edges through drying of the discharges which they absorb, and care must be taken in removing them to hold the plaster down over the region of the wound, sothat it may not be, even for a moment, dragged up along with them. These details, while essential to success, are, happily, easy of execution.1] The dressing on the day after the accident and subse¬ quently has differed from that used in the first instance in this respect, that, before applying the lac plaster, the 1 The remarks included within these brackets were made on another occasion.
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