on absolutely clean instruments, dressings and hands. The
most terrible wounds healed under this method without festering. This
is, of course, the method in vogue to-day all over the civilized world.
The Japanese did not discover aseptic surgery, but they were the first
to put it to actual test in a large way. The old method was to depend
upon drugs to kill the germs which might find their way into wounds and
operations. To-day we prevent the germs from getting into the wound and
depend upon nature to do the rest.

New Anesthetics.--Several important advances have been made in methods
of giving anesthetics and in the nature of the products used. Temporary
unconsciousness with electricity was induced in 1909 by Dr. Stephane
Leduc. Stovaine was invented by Dr. Jonnesco, of Bucharest. He injected
it into the spinal cord after the method made famous by Biers with
cocaine in 1899. Dr. W. S. Schley invented novocaine for the same
purpose. Temporary unconsciousness was accomplished by the use of epsom
salts injected into the spinal cord by Dr. Samuel J. Meltzer. All of
these efforts to discover a harmless anesthetic by spinal injection were
made possible by investigations and experiments of Dr. J. Leonard
Corning, of New York, who worked along this line as far back as 1885.
The most revolutionary discovery, however, was that of Dr. S. J. Meltzer
at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, when he inserted a tube into the
windpipe, through which he pumped the anesthetic into the lungs. While
doing this he at the same time pumped oxygen to aerate the blood, thus
ensuring the patient against possible accident during the course of
difficult and tedious operations on the lungs and heart.

Vaccine in Typhoid Fever.--Inasmuch as typhoid fever has played an
important part in the conduct of all wars, it has always been a source
of much careful study by military and naval surgeons in every civilized
country in the world. We had not, however, reached a stage when it was
possible to hope for its extermination until medical science began to
appreciate the possibilities of vaccine therapy. The Cuban, Boer and
Russian wars, because of the terrible experiences of the soldiers with
typhoid in each of them, stimulated inquiry along the line of
discovering a serum of vaccine that would be effectual against it.
American, British, French and Japanese military and naval surgeons
instituted experiments simultaneously to discover an anti-typhoid
vaccine