Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2009
(1) A modern pressure steam steriliser is thoroughly tested systematically.
(2) The experiences gained by the different methods employed are compared.
(3) It is shown that if steam is forced through the objects to be sterilised, the penetration through and the heating of the materials are practically effected in the time it takes to fill the oven. A bucket containing four surgeons' smocks and placed in accordance with the new principle, is thus heated in 5 minutes from 24° C. to 126° C. in all layers, by steam at 134° C. (2 atm. pressure). The same bucket placed in current steam at 134° C. with space for the steam to stream round about the bucket, as in ordinary sterilisers, is to be steamed for 40 minutes to get the thermometers in the contents to register over 125° C. In the first case, the samples of earth used are sterile after 5 minutes, in the second, after 30 minutes.
(4) In a series of orientating and purely provisional experiments, it is also proved that a smock bucket can be sterilised throughout at a low temperature, by formaldehyde-aqueous vapours, when these are sucked through the smocks, in accordance with the new principle.