Abstract
SIR ALMROTH WRIGHT has collected in this volume the addresses and papers upon wound infection that he published during the War of 1914-18. It is a fitting and salutary memorial of the pioneer work on a subject that was forced into prominence by the unprecedented casualties of that war. It is fitting because we can assess the large proportion of that work which has stood the test of time: and we can admire the brilliance of the experimental and technical devices invented by Sir Almroth and his colleagues, by which they were able to demonstrate the defensive action of leucocytes in open wounds and the connexion between ‘corruption’ and the loss in the tissue fluid of the power to neutralize the ‘tryptic’ processes of infection ; and by which they defined the conditions in which a merely contaminated wound would flare up into gas gangrene, and measured the efficacy of the available methods of antibacterial treatment. It is salutary for its few examples of how too close an adherence to a technical approach, however fruitful, can be a stumbling block, as in the exploration of acidosis in the wounded subject by titrations in soft glass capillary pipettes.
Pathology and Treatment of War Wounds
By Sir Almroth E. Wright. (Researches from the Inoculation Department, St. Mary's Hospital, London, W.2.) Pp. viii + 208. (London: William Heinemann (Medical Books), Ltd., 1942.) 21s. net.
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MILES, A. Pathology and Treatment of War Wounds. Nature 151, 209 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151209a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151209a0