Antyseptyka przed Listerem: empiryczne początki i zapomniane próby ograniczenia gnicia
Antisepsis before Lister: Empirical Beginnings and Forgotten Attempts to Mitigate Putrefaction

Summary/Abstract: Before the identification of bacteria as an infectious agent in wounds, antiseptic action was achieved in surgery either unconsciously or by seeing its beneficial effects without properly interpreting them, i.e. empirically. The simplicity of the antiseptic drug and procedure escaped the attention of surgeons, and the inadequacy of any doctrine to explain the phenomenon of inhibition of infection resulted in numerous errors, failures and the rapid forfeiture of both the knowledge and skills. For this reason, antisepsis was invented and lost many a time, and the actual discoveries, before its scientific interpretation was proposed (1867), had very little resonance in medicine. The antiseptic (antiputrefactive) potential of most natural raw materials and products is too weak to obtain or notice their unequivocal effect. A notable exception is spirit of wine, invented and used since around the 13th century, but although it inhibited infl ammation and arrested small hemorrhages, it was abandoned in wound treatment in favor of the innovations of Ambroise Paré (mechanical hemostasis). Antiseptics used consciously and intentionally as such (abstracting from their side effects and misunderstanding of their action) were: spirit of wine, vinegar, resins, balsams, volatile oils, glutinous substances, pitch, creosote, glycerol, water and brine used incidentally up to the year 1864. This article will be continued as a review of standalone antiseptic systems introduced before the Lister’s system.

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