Soil Bacteria and War Wounds

Abstract

A SURGICAL development which evolved on a large scale in the recent Spanish Civil War is the treatment of dirty and often comminuted and complicated fractures by immobilization in a plaster cast. The cast is applied immediately after the wound has been made ‘mechanically” clean by removal of bone and metal splinters and fragments of clothing and other foreign matter and by resection of all dead tissue that can be found; no antiseptic is applied to the wound itself. Subject to this preliminary cleansing and to the provision of traction and drainage as necessary, no other treatment is given during the month or so during which the first cast is in position; the plaster is then changed, and the second cast is allowed to remain for some weeks, after which union and healing are usually remarkably complete.