✨ Medical Report on Carbolic Acid
THE COUNTY OF
WESTLAND GAZETTE.
Published by Authority.
HOKITIKA, THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1868.
REPORT by the Surgeon Superintendent
of the Hospital, Hokitika, on the use
of Carbolic Acid in Surgical cases:—
To the Hon. John HALL,
Chairman of the County
Council, &c.
Sir,—In compliance with your request,
I have the honour to forward the following
condensed report of the treatment of cases in
this Hospital on the antiseptic principle re-
cently introduced in England by Professor
Lister. For more detailed information on
this mode of treatment I beg to refer you to
Professor Lister’s papers in the Lancet for
March 16th, 23rd, and 30th, April 27th and
July 27th of last year, and to a paper for-
warded by myself to the Australian Medical
Journal, which will, I expect, appear next
month.
Having studied under Professor Lister
for two years, and knowing him to be a
philosophic surgeon of the highest order, I
cagerly availed myself of a method of treat-
ment which in his hands had been, to use his
own words, productive of such splendid re-
sults, and I did so the more eagerly inasmuch
as the last two cases of compound fracture
treated in the ordinary way in the Hospital
over which I preside had terminated fatally.
Briefly stated, then, the theory on which
the new method of treating compound frac-
tures, abscesses, &c., is based is as follows:
1st, Professor Lister accepts as proved the
doctrine of M. Pasteur, that the septic
influence of the atmosphere on wounds,
&c., depends not upon its oxygen or
any other gaseous constituent, but
upon minute particles suspended in it,
which are the germs of various low
forms of life (septic infusoria).
2nd, He contemplates the destruction of
those germs, or at least of their vitality,
at the immediate site of the wound,
abscess, or fracture, where they give
rise to decomposition and suppuration
with their consequent and manifold
ills.
3rd, After many experiments he found
that carbolic or phenic acid, a volatile
organic compound, appeared to exer-
cise a peculiarly destructive influence
upon low forms of life, and to be
the most powerful antiseptic
with which we are at present
acquainted.
Henry H——, aged 32, miner, admitted
7th January, 1868, when he stated that
about five hours before admission, while en-
gaged with his mates felling a tree, the trunk
in falling struck him on the right leg, jam-
ming it against the trunk of another tree.
Found a compound fracture of both bones of
the leg at its middle third, the wound expos-
ing the fracture being on the anterior aspect
and tibial side, not very large externally and
bleeding freely, as patient had been carried
five miles over a rough road. After having
explored the wound, which was very deep,
and removed clots and squeezed out as much
of the fluid blood which had collected in the
wound as possible, a piece of lint, held in
dressing forceps, was dipped in melted car-
bolic acid of full strength and introduced
into and made to penetrate all its accessible
crevices. On being removed a second piece
was introduced in the same way. The pain,
not by any means severe, was almost momen-
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Westland Provincial Gazette 1868, No 3
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
🏥 Report on Use of Carbolic Acid in Surgical Cases
🏥 Health & Social Welfare5 March 1868
Medical report, Carbolic acid, Surgical treatment, Antiseptic principle, Lister's method
- Henry H——, Patient with compound fracture
- Hon. John Hall, Chairman of the County Council