The New York Times/1916/11/22/Woman’s Discovery Sterilizes Uniforms
WOMAN’S DISCOVERY STERILIZES UNIFORMS
Miss Mary Davies’s Preparation Prevents Infection From Cloth Shot Into the Body.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
PARIS. Nov. 21.—Miss Mary Davies, bacteriologist for the Robert Walton Goelet Research Fund, has just completed experiments at Ris-Orangeis Hospital, where Dr. Joseph A. Blake is head, which marks another advance in minimizing wound infections contracted on the battlefield.
One of the greatest causes of infection found in all military hospitals has been pieces of uniforms shot into the body.
Miss Davies’s experiments consist in treatment of cloth by antiseptic substances so that after months of subjection to all forms of dirt and germs it remains absolutely sterile. Results of the experiments are now in the hands of the French and British authorities with a view of having all uniforms at the front treated with the Davies preparation. In England the preparation has had the approval of David Lloyd George; so, for the next consignment of clothes sent to the “Tommies” such sterilization has been ordered.
Aside from preventing infection of wounds the preparation has another great advantage. In the words of Miss Davies:
“Body lice, which are the greatest discomfort of trench life, will henceforth find these antiseptic substances entirely inimical to their well being.”
Operations proving the utility of the preparation were made at Ris-Orangeis laboratories by Dr. Kenneth Taylor. The subjects were guinea pigs, and both non-treated and sterilized cloths were used. In the latter cases the cloth was subjected to the most severe exposure, such as being smeared with garden soil known to contain tetanus and other deadly germs. Also the cloth was left lying about on the earth and later on a roof for weeks before being injected into the pigs. In all cases the pigs remained well, while in cases where pieces cut from uniforms of French soldiers were injected the pigs invariably died.
The basis for the treatment is a combination of cresol and soft soap. Miss Davies, summarizing her report to the Government, says: “The practice of periodically impregnating the clothing of armies upon active service will fully repay the cost in reducing the proportion of highly septic wounds.”
Miss Davies is the woman who inoculated herself with gangrene bacilli a year ago to prove the efficacy of Taylor’s preparation.