and after working for a patient for fifteen minutes, finger-prints were made in agar; after 24 hours' incubation at 37° C. the smear showed a mixed culture of staphylococcus, colon bacillus, hay bacillus, etc. (Fig. 5.)

These simple and by no means thoroughly worked-out experiments show us that the rational thing to do is to get the hands clean and keep them clean, by thorough scrubbing for each patient, then rinse the hands at frequent intervals in some reliable non-irritating antiseptic -my choice being lysol or Dakin's fluid -or cover the hands with tincture of green soap, which soon dries leaving an invisible smear of soap over the hands that covers the sweat-glands, the hair follicles, and the epithelial scales, for a short time at least.

What appliances have we that should be sterilized, and how shall we sterilize them? Rubber dam is sterilized when in position on the teeth by washing the field of operation with alcohol (70 per cent.) or tincture of iodin. The chip-blower or hot-air pipe should be flamed; handpieces should be boiled in a green soap solution occasionally. For purposes of sterilization we may separate our instruments into two divisions:

in daily practice in most of the dental offices of this country indicate a low grade of service, so far as asepsis goes. We are not referring to any other feature of practice, simply to asepsis in all that the word means to any and every branch of surgery.

An

When the manufacturers realized that there was to be a demand for sterilizers, they began to put on the market sterilizers that would sell-not apparatus that would meet the requirements; and the majority of dentists permitted talkative salesmen to deceive them in a manner that would be amusing if it were not so serious. As a result, wall cabinets appeared in many offices, the glass doors of which bear the legend, in large gilt letters, STERILIZER. So loud and so positive is the statement that one is deeply impressed. How could a micro-organism dare remain in an office with such a menace staring him in the face! examination of the interior of the cabinet, however, puts a microbe at ease. While the cabinet is new, a little formalin in some form is kept in the cabinet. Dependence is placed upon formaldehyd-which, as everybody knows, is a germicide of the first class, but it is a difficult matter to confine gas; it leaks out while the case is closed, and when the doors are open it flies out. If instruments are boiled, then dried on sterile towels before being placed in the giltlettered cabinet; if the gilt-lettered door is gas-tight, and there be formaldehyd in sufficient quantity within the gilded case, then the instruments will remain sterile so long as the gilt letters and the gas hold out.