Volume 1

In search of the soul and the mechanism of thought, emotion, and conduct ... / by Bernard Hollander.

  • Bernard Hollander
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: In search of the soul and the mechanism of thought, emotion, and conduct ... / by Bernard Hollander. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    526/536 (page 510)
    This suggested to Lord LISTER (1827-1912) the thought that the putrefaction changes in wound discharges might be due to living organisms, and that the ex¬ clusion of these by aseptic dressings would enable wounds to heal more readily. Lister made it possible to operate with safety upon conditions and diseases which formerly proved fatal. Lister published his theory of asepis in 1867. Before that time the mortality in operative surgical cases (amputations) was about forty per cent. ; it is now under three per cent., notwithstanding that operations which no surgeon would have dared to attempt before i860 are now performed. Lister’s teaching encountered no more bigoted opposition anywhere than in his own country, and bacteriology was a laughing-stock to most men over middle age up to a com¬ paratively recent time. Some time before Lister, in 1844, a Budapesth obstetrician, IGNAZ SEfVl^EL- WEISS (1818-1865) investigated the problem of that fatal fever which levied so heavy a toll on the lying-in women of the hospital at Vienna (ten per cent.), of which he was then a physician. C. E. v. BAER (1792-1876) and OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894) had already hinted at contagion as a factor in these cases (1842), but in vain. Semmelweiss noticed that the deaths among patients were greater in those clinics whose chief attended to post-mortem examinations as well, and he advocated surgical cleaning of the hands before attendance in the maternity wards. This practice was followed by a considerable reduction in puerperal mortality. Hence¬ forth he assailed all uncleanliness in medical practice and aroused the enmity of the orthodox school. He had to leave Vienna and return to his native city, where he became Professor of Midwifery in 1850. In i860 he published his defence of the employment of antisepsis in midwifery, gynaecology, and surgery, which later made Lister §0 famous. In 1863 he performed the first ovariotomy operation. He was persecuted in every way, and was urged by his friends to prove his position by experiments on animals, but his energy had already given way and he did not proceed far in the investigation. His sensitive nature was not equal to the strain of violent controversy, and, brooding over the wrongs he suffered, he became insane. Sem- melweiss, at a time when bacteriology was still unknown, laid down the doctrine that puerperal fever and other hospital poison diseases are caused by infected material due to decomposed organic matter, and that, by disinfection of the hands with chlorinated lime, the mortality could be reduced by at least sixty per cent. In 1886 ERNST v. BERGMANN (1836-1907), of Berlin, introduced sterilisation in surgery. [Bergmann greatly advanced cranial surgery in his “ Memoirs on Hea,d Injuries” (1873) and “Surgical Treatment of Cerebral Diseases” (1888).] In 1867 JULIUS GOHNHEIftf (1839-1884), pupil of Virchow, demonstrated the migration of leucocytes and their part in the process of inflammation, a theory which received additional significance by the discoveries of ELIE METCHNIKOFF (1845-1916), the eminent Russian biologist, who developed the subject of immunity on the cellular side by his studies of inflammation, 1884. His theory of phago¬ cytosis, in the hands of Sir EDWARD ALMRGTH WRIGHT (1861-) and others, led to vaccine-therapy (1902-7), rendering the blood immune to the virus. In 1880, EBERTH and GAFFKY discovered the typhoid bacillus ; in 1882, BAUMGARTEN (1848-) and ROBERT KOCH (1843-1910) discovered the tubercle bacillus, and the latter, in 1883, discovered the cholera bacillus. In the same year EDWIN KLEBS (1834-1913) and FRIEDRICH LOFFLER (1852-1915) isolated the diphtheria bacillus ; and in 1885 ALBERT FRANKEL and ANTON WEICH- SELBAUM the micro-organism of pneumonia. These are only some of the bac¬ teriologists. From their discoveries grew an enormous body of knowledge. HISTORY OF DISCOVERY OF ANESTHETICS The aseptic method of performing operations has enabled surgery to make wonderful strides, but another factor in its success was the discovery of anaesthetics in the early part of the century. What must have been the agonies of patients in pre-anaesthetic days, considering that at the present time we shudder at the thought of having the slightest incision