“I thought more firmly than over,” he declared, “that the miasms emanating from the pus of the wounded were the real cause of this frightful disease, to which I had the sorrow of seeing the wounded succumb--whether their wounds were dressed with charpie and cerate or with alcoholized and carbolic lotions, either renewed several times a day or impregnating linen bandages which remained applied to the wounds. In my despair--ever seeking some means of preventing these terrible complications--I bethought me that the miasms, whose existence I admitted, because I could not otherwise explain the production of purulent infection--and which were only known to me by their deleterious influence--might well be living corpuscles, of the kind which Pasteur had seen in atmospheric air, and, from that moment, the history of miasmatic poisoning became clearer to me. If,” I said, “miasms are ferments, I might protect the wounded from their fatal influence by filtering the air, as Pasteur did. I then conceived the idea of cotton-wool dressings, and I had the satisfaction of seeing my anticipations realized.” After arresting the bleeding, ligaturing the blood vessels and carefully washing the wound with carbolic solution or camphorated alcohol, Alphonse Guérin applied thin layers of cotton wool, over which he placed thicker masses of the same, binding the whole with strong bandages of new linen. This dressing looked like a voluminous parcel and did not require to be removed for about twenty days. This was done at the St. Louis Hospital to the wounded of the Commune from March till June, 1871. Other surgeons learnt with amazement that, out of thirty-four patients treated in that way, nineteen had survived operation. Dr. Reclus, who could not bring himself to believe it, said: “We had grown to look upon purulent infection as upon an inevitable and necessary disease, an almost Divinely instituted consequence of any important operation.”