1888

New antiseptic method of surgery “just coming into vogue” at Mass General. Younger surgeons more interested in it than senior surgeons (Finney, 70); the “transition period between the old surgery and the new” (74-75). First attempts at sterilization utilized the hospital bakery oven (75-76); limited types of operations undertaken at the time: “With rare exceptions no operations were done on the gall bladder, the liver, the spleen or the kidney” (79). However, Listerism was “wholeheartedly adopted” by surgical staff at NY’s Woman’s Hospital in 1877 (Marr, 135-137).