J.P. Bull

Revised analysis of mortality due to burns.

Abstract Between 1946 and 1964 mortality experience in a busy burns unit hardly changed. In 1965 routine prophylaxis against Pseudo monas œruginosa infection with 0.5% silver-nitrate solution was introduced, and since then mortality improved considerably. Probability charts, based on probit analysis, for age of patient and percentage body-surface area burned have been reconstructed.

Methods for Disinfection of Hands and Operation Sites

In previous studies we compared the relative value of alternative methods for disinfecting the hands of nurses and surgeons and the skin of operation sites, but a number of relevant questions were not considered. For disinfection of the operation site alcoholic solutions of chlorhexidine (0.5%) and iodine (1%) were found to be equally effective and superior to a number of other agents (Lowbury, Lilly, and Bull, 1960), but we did not include laurolinium acetate, which was later reported by Verd?n (1961) to be more effective than nine other antiseptic prepara tions, including 1 % iodine in alcohol ; nor did we examine the removal of spore-bearing organisms. In studies on the disinfection of hands we confirmed the cumulative effect of