After operation all instruments should again be scrubbed with soap and hot water, immersed a moment in boiling water or a jet of live steam, dried with an aseptic cloth, and returned to the case.
A very effectual means of rendering instruments sterile is to place them in a metal box and bake them in the ordinary oven (200° F.) for one hour.
To preserve needles Dawbarn advises keeping them in a saturated solution of washing soda. Albolene has an unpleasant oiliness, but is otherwise good. Calcium chlorid in absolute alcohol is efficacious, but expensive. All rust accumulating on instruments must be carefully removed with fine emery cloth; this, however, is unnecessary if the soda solution is used as previously mentioned. It is well to occasionally dip the instruments (holding them with an artery forceps) into boiling water as they are used during operation.
Fig. 8.—Instrument Sterilizer.
PREPARATION OF THE SURGEON AND ASSISTANTS
Care of the Hands
The hands of the surgeon and his assistants must always be thoroughly prepared before operation or dressing a wound. The mere immersion of the hands into an antiseptic solution is not sufficient to remove germ life. The oily secretions of the skin and its folds, as well as the cleft about the nails and the nails themselves, are common carriers of infection and are cleansed only by the vigorous method of scrubbing with soap and water and then rendered aseptic by the use of proper media.
The aseptic hospital washstand, as shown in [Fig. 9], will be found an ideal piece of furniture; it has a frame constructed of wrought iron, white enameled. The top is of one-inch polished plate glass, with two twelve-inch holes.