"Germicides" for Skin Preparation Before Surgery

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The investigation reported here was a study of various agents used to prepare the skin of the surgeon and also of the patient before operation. Although many materials have been used through the years for both areas, their very number indicated a lack of complete satisfaction. Studies2 in this field have been based on "removable bacteria," that is, bacteria that could be washed, abraded, brushed from the skin, or impinged on agar. This lack of uniformity has remained a technical fault in the field. Within these limits many evaluations have been performed. As a method of comparing various agents under identical experimental conditions, enumeration of viable bacteria brushed from the skin has been accepted in most surgical clinics as a reasonable standard. This has been done with the realization that the bacterial counts obtained do not reflect the true microbial populations of the skin. The organisms that may be
Keywords

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: