The history of intracranial infections.

The 19th and 20th centuries heralded the advancement of our understanding of surgical infections, reducing the risk of morbidity and mortality to patients by overturning long-held dogmas surrounding infections and perioperative care. These advancements impacted the development and establishment of the field of neurological surgery by minimizing surgical risk through aseptic techniques and promoting surgical benefit via improved neurological localization and surgical technique. Infections were significant contributors to morbidity and mortality for all surgical patients, and historically almost half of patients lost their lives as a consequence of perioperative wound contamination. With advancing understanding of germ theory, contagion, antisepsis, and subsequently asepsis, the surgeon began embracing the knowledge and techniques which would hone their craft and allow for a renaissance in the management of neurological disorders in an unprecedented manner.

"Yes, I Shot the President, but His Physicians Killed Him." The Assassination of President James A. Garfield.

President James A. Garfield suffered two gunshots on July 2, 1881, but did not die until 80 days later of complications from sepsis. He might have survived had his injuries not been contaminated, either by the gunshots themselves or the interventions that followed. "Yes, I shot the president," said Charles Guiteau, Garfield's assassin, "but his physicians killed him." The drama of Garfield's struggle to survive his injuries evoked enormous national interest, a harbinger of the medical dramas and documentaries of today. D. Willard Bliss, a former Civil War surgeon, and his handpicked consultants underwent daily scrutiny by the professional community and lay press. As the President died because of his injuries, the surgeons' reputations suffered. A primary criticism was the supposed lack of antiseptic interventions in Garfield's care, especially when probing the wound with unwashed hands. Inserting a finger into the wound, however, was a basic part of examination of a gunshot wound at the time. Many American surgeons had not accepted Listerian antisepsis at the time of the event, and aseptic techniques, such as scrupulous handwashing and surgical gloves, had not yet been developed. In the context of surgical practice of the era, his surgeons followed the standards of care of the time.

Daniel Mollière (1848-1890), the French anatomist and surgeon, and his encounters with nosocomial infections in the operating theatre.

Daniel Mollière, was a French anatomist and surgeon, born in Lyon, who succeeded in his short life in making his mark in surgery. He was a prolific writer who left a series of medical treatises and a committed surgeon who was responsible for various significant innovative apparatuses in the medical sper. As he lived in an era when the role of microbe had already been recognized, he was among the first to use antisepsis and install extreme measures against microbes, both in the air and on the skin'. Fountains with fresh clean water, carbonic acid, cross ventilation, medical blouses, combined with Valette's apparatus for the dressing of amputations, were some of his precautions to reduce surgical infections and post-operative mortality.

The Bolognese surgeon Giuseppe Ruggi: how and why the aseptic surgery was introduced in Bologna in the middle half of the XIX century.

BACKGROUND: The first reliable statistic data about perioperatory mortality were published in 1841 by the French Joseph-Francois Malgaigne (1806-1863): he referred to a mean mortality of 60% for amputations and this bad result was to be attributed mainly to hospital acquired diseases. The idea of "hospital acquired disease" although vague, included five infective nosologic entities, which at that time were diagnosed more frequently: erysipelas, tetan, pyemia, septicemia, and gangrene. Nonetheless, the suppuration with pus production was considered from most of the surgeons and doctors of that time as a necessary and unavoidable step in the process of wound healing. During the end of the eighteenth century, hospitals of the main European cities were transforming into aggregations of several wards, where the high concentration of patients created poor sanitary conditions and a consistent increase of perioperatory mortality. In 1865, Lister applied his first antiseptic dressing on the surface of an exposed fracture. These experimental attempts lead to an effective reduction of wound infections respect to the dressing with strings used previously. DISCUSSION: Lister's innovations in the field of wound treatment were based on two brand new concepts: germs causing rot were ubiquitarious and the wound infection was not a normal step in the process of wound healing. The concept of antisepsis was hardly accepted in the European surgical world: "Of all countries, Italy is the most indifferent and uninterested in experimenting this method, which has been so favorably judged from the greatest surgical societies in Germany". This quotation from the young surgeon Giuseppe Ruggi (1844-1925) from Bologna comes from his article where he presented his first experiences on aseptic medications started the previous year in the Surgical Department of Maggiore Hospital in Bologna. In his report, Ruggi described the adopted technique and suggested that the medication should be extended to all the surgical patients of the hospital:"… this is needed to totally remove from the hospital all those elements of infection which grow in the wounds dressed with the old method". The experimentation of this new dressing for the few treated cases was rigorous and concerned both the sterilization of surgical tools with the fenic acid (5%) and the shaving of the skin. Ruggi also observed that there was no correlation between the seriousness of the wound and its extension or way of healing: when "simple" cases that "should heal without complication" showed fever he often realized that "it was often due to a medication performed without following the rules for an accurate disinfection and dressing". Ruggi thought that the fever was connected to "reabsorption of pyrogenic substances, which can be removed cleaning and disinfecting the wound" in cases of wounds not accurately dressed and rarely medicated. Frequent postoperative medications of the wound were able to eliminate the fever within 2 h. Ruggi's attitude toward the fine reasoning lead him to introduce the concept of immunodeficiency related to physical deterioration: "… patients treated for surgical disease may sometimes suffer from complications of medical conditions, which initially escape the most accurate investigations… The surgical operation could, in some cases, hold the balance of power". CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results, published in 1879, appear extremely interesting. As he wrote in 1898, for the presentation of his case record of more than 1000 laparotomies, he had started "… operating as a young surgeon without any tutor, helped only by his mind and what he could deduce from publications existing at the moment …".

Trepanation and surgical infection in the 18th century.

BACKGROUND: It is widely believed that trepanation prior to modern surgical hygiene was dangerous because of surgical infection, especially in the hospital. There has been a wide variability in the success and risks of different historical studies PURPOSE: To obtain a more accurate assessment of the risks of post-operative infection following 18th-century cranial trauma and to note what factors were of prognostic significance. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seven 18th-century texts on head injury are reviewed and analyzed. RESULTS: Infection was the commonest cause of death (in over 60% of patients) in five series but not in the other two. Hospital admission did not appear to be a major factor influencing mortality from infection. Delayed infection was the indication for patient referral and trepanation in more than two patients in two series. In one series, the patients were helped by the procedure, in the other they were not. The reasons for the difference are discussed. The most striking finding was that patients treated in rural areas had a much better prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: The risks of suffering a surgical infection following head injury and trepanation are multifactorial. Admission to hospital seems to have been less risky than has been previously thought. It seems that the greatest risk factor for a lethal infection for these patients was living in an urban environment.

[Antiseptics in Germany. The formation of surgical knowledge 1872-1892]. / Antisepsis in Deutschland. Zur Wissenschafts-geschichte der Chirurgie 1872-1892.

The paper deals with the impact of antisepsis on German surgery between 1872 and 1892. It describes the acceptance of Lister's treatment as the result of a therapeutic mass experiment. In the face of tremendous mortality rates in the surgical wards of general and larger academic hospitals, the evidence persuaded the critics within only few years, wile the discussion on theoretical questions was intentionally avoided. The author suggests to reconsider the impact of bacteriology on modern surgery and to put more emphasis on professional and social developments, and on the role of evidence in hospital medicine.

Apuntes históricos sobre el manejo de la infección en el desarrollo de la cirugía / Historical notes onb the management of infection during the development of surgery

La cirugía y la medicina no evolucionaron en forma paralela, con discrepancias, reservas, belicosidad, desprecios e incluso estudios universitarios separados durante bastante tiempo. La Cofradía de San Cosme, fundada en Francia en 1260, para supervigilar el ejercicio profesional quirúrgico de los barberos (cirujanos-barberos de toga corta), tuvo la oposición de la Facultad de Medicina de París. Los intereses contrapuestos de la universidad, Cofradía y barberos, que persistieron hasta fines del siglo XVIII, perjudicaron el progreso de la cirugía. En la primera mitad del siglo XIX, el avance de la cirugía continuó enfrentándose al dolor, la hemorragia y a la infección. El control de ésta debió pasar por la antisepsia, asepsia y finalmente por la aparición de las sustancias antimicrobianas, sulfamidados y antibióticos, que permitirían a los cirujanos abordar y solucionar problemas de mayor relevancia de la especialidad, curativos y preventivos.