, shock, or exhaustion.

I have taken the liberty of bringing here a number of culture tubes
containing beautiful specimens of some of the more common and
interesting bacteria. The slimy masses seen on the surfaces of jelly
contained in the tubes are many millions of individual plants, which
have aggregated themselves in various forms as they have been
developed as the progeny of the few parent cells planted in the jelly
as a nutrient medium or soil.

With this feeble plea, Mr. President and members of the Society, I
hope to create a realization of the necessity for knowledge and
interest in the direction of bacteriology; for this is the foundation
of modern surgery. There is, unfortunately, a good deal of abominable
work done under the names of antiseptic and aseptic surgery, because
the simplest facts of bacteriology are not known to the operator.

_Rules to be observed in Operations at Dr. Roberts' Clinic at the
Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia._--After wounds or operations high
temperature usually, and suppuration always, is due to blood
poisoning, which is caused by infection with vegetable parasites
called bacteria.

These parasites ordinarily gain access to the wound from the skin of
the patient, the finger nails or hands of the operator or his
assistants, the ligatures, sutures, or dressings.

Suppuration and high temperature should not occur after operation
wounds if no suppuration has existed previously.

Bacteria exist almost everywhere as invisible particles in the dust;
hence, everything that touches or comes into even momentary contact
with the wound must be germ-free--technically called "sterile."

A sterilized condition of the operator, the assistant, the wound,
instruments, etc., is obtained by removing all bacteria by means of
absolute surgical cleanliness (asepsis), and by the use of those
chemical agents which destroy the bacteria not removed by cleanliness
itself (antisepsis).

Surgical cleanliness differs from the housewife's idea of cleanliness
in that its details seem frivolous, because it aims at the removal of
microscopic particles. Stains, such as housewives abhor, if germ-free,
are not objected to in surgery.

The hands and arms, and especially the finger nails, of the surgeon,
assistants, and nurses should be well scrubbed with hot water and
soap, by means of a nail brush, immediately before the operation. The
patient's body about the site of the proposed operation should be
simi