Paul Berger (physician)

This renovation of our instrumentation was the consequence of the revolution that antisepsis introduced in surgical practice; it has been necessary to create entirely new equipment that meets and exceeds the conditions that surgeons consider essential."

Berger drew special attention to the various designs for scissor-like articulations that French instrument makers had devised so that they could easily be disassembled for cleaning.

He began with the statement:[5][6] For several years I have been worried as to the part that drops of liquid projected from the mouth of the operator or his assistants may exercise on the outbreaks of infection which one still sees from time to time under conditions of surgical asepsis which are apparently satisfactory.Berger had been alerted by some cases of suppuration after otherwise clean operations with an assistant suffering from an alveolar abscess.

Conscious of Carl Flügge's discovery of pathogens in saliva, he determined to shield his operation incisions from this cause of contamination, and in October 1897 began to wear "a rectangular compress of six layers of gauze, sewn at its lower edge to his sterilized linen apron (he had a beard to safeguard) and the upper border held against the root of the nose by strings tied behind the neck."

I do not blind myself to the fact that this is too great a shock to custom for it to receive a much more favourable welcome than that accorded by the German surgeons to an analogous communication by Professor Mikulicz.