A Handbook on Antiseptics

Abstract

THE object of this little handbook, so the authors state, is to give a concise account of the chief chemical antiseptics which have been found useful for surgical purposes during: the present war. It appears at a very opportune moment, for, in spite of the disapprobation with which the^se substances are viewed in certain quarters, there is no indication that, as accessories to surgical treatment, they are losing in favour-rather the. contrary. The septic character o^most of the wounds received in France emphasised, at an early, period of the war, the importance of a searching and systematic study of antiseptics.. The result has been an array of new active substances. And this fact furnishes an additional raison. d'etre for the volume under review. Dakin's hypo-chlorite solution, Lorraine Smith's eusol, the chlor-amine antiseptics of Dakin and his collaborators, Browning's flavine antiseptics, and Morison's so-called B.I.P. paste, which have supplanted to a great extent the older preparations, have all appeared during the last four years. In most of the larger military hospitals these substances are known and used, but there must be a number of surgeons who have not access to the information except through occasional detached articles in the medical Press.

A Handbook on Antiseptics.

By Dr. H. D. Dakin Dr. E. K. Dunham. Pp. ix + 129. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1917.) Price 7s. net.