Note on the history of carbolic acid and its compounds in surgery prior to 1867 / by Sir J.Y. Simpson.

James Young Simpson

Date:: [1867]

Credit: Note on the history of carbolic acid and its compounds in surgery prior to 1867 / by Sir J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$Mr. Lister remarks (Lancet, September 21, 18G7) that when it Mr.Lister's had been shown, by the researches of Pasteur, that the septic property of the atmosphere depended on minute living organisms suspended in ' it, “ it occurred to me,” to use his own words, “ that decomposition in the injured part might be avoided, without excluding the air, by ap- plying as a dressing some material capable of destroying the life of the floating particles. Upon this principle I have based a practice. The material which I have employed is carbolic or phenic acid, a volatile organic compound, which appears to exercise a pecu- liarly destructive influence upon low forms of life.” Now the very same theory—the very same practice—and the very anticipated same measure for reducing that theory to practice, have all been worked by several out and published on the Continent years ago by Lemaire, Declat, ’ Kuchenmeister, and others. The strongest averments cannot alter the simplest dates, and I fear that it will not redound to the credit and character of English surgery to claim for it what most certainly does not pertain to it. In his work on Carbolic Acid, Dr. Lemaire enters elaborately and as Lemaire. philosophically into the question of septic infusoria in the atmosphere,* and discusses the opinion of Schultze, Schwann, Pasteur, Pouchet, air killed Helmholtz, Milne-Edwards, Bernard, Gratiolet, and others, upon the by it. subject. His conclusions are that the air does contain these alleged low vital organisms; that when admitted to wounds, ulcers, etc., they produce a decomposition in the part and secreted fluids, aiding the formation of pus ; that this decomposition is effected by a vital action similar to the production and multiplication of organisms in the process of fermentation ; and that carbolic acid—even in very small doses—has the power of preventing and of arresting any such decom- posing effects from these organisms by at once and immediately destroying the life of the organisms themselves. Mr. Lister has hitherto chiefly or only described, I believe, three Surgical kinds of surgical complications in which he has employed carbolic °j. acid—namely (1) in compound fractures; (2) in suppurations; and A‘ci(i> (3) in wounds. In all of these points he has been long forestalled by the experience of our continental neighbours. 1. In Compound Fractures.—Two of the hospital surgeons of Used in Bayonne—namely, MM. Darrican and Petit—used it in compound fractures of the limbs, under the form of saponified coal-tar, as early as 1860. In 1862, in a case of severe comminuted fracture of four fingers, attended by Dr. Lemaire, irrigations with cold water yvere at * In October 1860 Dr. Lemaire read at Paris, before the Imperial Academy of Success of Sciences, and afterwards published, a paper full of experiments, entitled “ Considera- Lemaire’s tions sur le Role des Infusoires et des Matieres Albuminoides dans la Fermentation,” Book, etc. In June of the same year (1860) lie presented to the Academy a memoir trying to show that pus is a product of secretion and fermentation. Mr. Lister (see the Lancet for October 5, 1867) incautiously declares that Dr. Lemaire’s book on Car- bolic Acid “ does not appear to have attracted the notice of our profession.” But the sale of the first edition of it was so rapid as to surprise both author and publisher, and / two huudred copies were asked for after the edition was exhausted. Has auy English monograph on auy individual medical agent ever met with such marked success?$

Note on the history of carbolic acid and its compounds in surgery prior to 1867 / by Sir J.Y. Simpson.

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