_The Antiseptic System of Surgery._--Those who only know the surgical conditions of to-day can scarcely realise the state of matters which existed before the introduction of the antiseptic system by Joseph Lister in 1867. In those days few wounds escaped the ravages of pyogenic and other bacteria, with the result that suppuration ensued after most operations, and such diseases as erysipelas, pyæmia, and "hospital gangrene" were of everyday occurrence. The mortality after compound fractures, amputations, and many other operations was appalling, and death from blood-poisoning frequently followed even the most trivial operations. An operation was looked upon as a last resource, and the inherent risk from blood-poisoning seemed to have set an impassable barrier to the further progress of surgery. To the genius of Lister we owe it that this barrier was removed. Having satisfied himself that the septic process was due to bacterial infection, he devised a means of preventing the access of organisms to wounds or of counteracting their effects. Carbolic acid was the first antiseptic agent he employed, and by its use in compound fractures he soon obtained results such as had never before been attained. The principle was applied to other conditions with like success, and so profoundly has it affected the whole aspect of surgical pathology, that many of the infective diseases with which surgeons formerly had to deal are now all but unknown. The broad principles upon which Lister founded his system remain unchanged, although the methods employed to put them into practice have been modified. #Means taken to Prevent Infection of Wounds.#--The avenues by which infective agents may gain access to surgical wounds are so numerous and so wide, that it requires the greatest care and the most watchful attention on the part of the surgeon to guard them all. It is only by constant practice and patient attention to technical details in the operating room and at the bedside, that the carrying out of surgical manipulations in such a way as to avoid bacterial infection will become an instinctive act and a second nature. It is only possible here to indicate the chief directions in which danger lies, and to describe the means most generally adopted to avoid it. To prevent infection, it is essential that everything which comes into contact with a wound should be sterilised or disinfected, and to ensure the best results it is necessary that the efficiency of our methods of sterilisation should be periodically tested. The two chief agencies at our disposal are heat and chemical antiseptics.