The conditions interfering with the healing of wounds: with experiments on lesions and implantation infection: written for the Lister Prize in Surgery

Abstract

I consider that these experiments, comprising nearly 100 inoculations, afford some measure of the relative powers of the several conditions which interfere with the normal healing of wounds. They demonstrate the injurious effects of mechanical and chemical irritants in lowering tissue vitality. And they illustrate how the locus minoris resistentiae.thus produced permits a lesion infection to be established by organisms in such moderate numbers and of such slight virulence as are proved to be harmless in healthy tissues. They thus enforce the careful protection of wounds during operation from every condition which is liable to impair normal physiological vitality and interfere with the subsequent healing process.