CARBOLIC ACID.

West Coast Times, Issue 770, 12 March 1868, Page 3

CARBOLIC ACID.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE WEST COAST TIMES. Sie — It was with no littlo surprise I learnt that an Extraordinary " Gazette " had been published for the purpose of making known to tho public of New Zealand generally, and the medical profession especially, that Dr Ryley, Surgeon Superintendent of the Hokitika Hospital, has seen the paper read by Mr Lister, before tho British Medical Association in Dublin on the 9th of August, 1867, and has copied the treatment there shown to have been successfully adopted, and has brought three cases to a favorable termination. Has Dr Ryley astonished himself by a result so unusual, as a recovery of a case of compound fracturo in his hospital? Has he not seen the same result from other treatment, water dressings, &c. ? Or is it supposed that Surgeons in Now Zealand do not keep up their professional knowledge by study, and watching the advances made by science in Europe ? Had Dr Ryley used carbolic acid two or even one year ago, before the subject had become so generally discussed, ho would have deserved some credit ; but when, from his position as Hospital Sur- • gcon, he has merely done that which has been tried and reported on in eveiy hospital in London, he surely has done no more than his duty. Mr Lister's papers on the subject of •' Carbolic Acid " were published in the "Lancet" in several numbers, commencing in March, 1867. But Mr Lister can hardly claim the credit of a discoverer of the application of carbolic acid in the treatment of wounds, as it was used in France as early as 1859, and it was used in the French army after the battles of Magenta and bofferino. Dr Declat published in Paris in 1865 his work >J jNouvelles, Applications do 1' Acid Pheneque (Carbolic), &c," in which he says that he first used carbolic acid in 1861, and that M. Maisom Neuve (who saw a case with him) has not ceased to use carbolic acid at the Hotel Dieu as an habitual dressing. Two of the hospital surgeons of Bayonne, named M. M. Darricau and Petit, used it in compound fractures -of , the limbs in 1860, in the form of sapouified coal tar. It was used by Professor Spcnee, President of the College of burgeons, Edingburgh, iv 1865; Kiiehen, Mcister of Dresden, and many other.-, far too numerous to mention, in various pans of Europe have used it for several years. Mr Lister, in Ms letter to the " Laucet," October 5, states that all Ins recent visitors to the blasgow Royal Infirmary had viewed his treatment of wounds, abscesses, compound fractures, &c, with garbo ie acid as original and entirely new, to which "Sir J. Y. i>impson, M.D., L.L.D., &c, replies— " While 1 regret the strange and almost incomprehensible want of knowledge with which he charges his professional visitors, I am fortunately not answerable for it, and if Mr Lister had takon the slightest trouble to search English medical literature alone, ho would easily have convinced himself of his own grave error in this respect. I think most, if not all, of tho mcaical aud therapeutic journals of England have alluded, more or less, to tho subject during the last six or sovon years." So much for Mr Ryley, who obtains, a whole " Gazette"for successful experiments in threo cases only. I should not have noticed this case, as it is not mv habit to write in newspapers on any subject, and it is most distasteful to mo having to do so on tho present occasion, but, as there is no medical periodical in New Zealand, and I am not so fortunate as to be able to command a "Gazette," I am obliged to do so, to shield myself and the profession generally from an implied charge of ignorance. People want to know what this carbolic acid is. As the " Gazette Extraordinary" docs not give the information, I Anil. It is a colorless crystalline body, which fuses at 32deg. (cent) and boils at 187deg., and is obtained from oil of coal tar. " I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, M.R.C.S., Engd.