cyst) and was quite disappointed to learn nothing ailed her but an excessive deposit of fat over the abdomen." In this connection it is of interest to note that Dr. Wythe seems to have performed the first operation for ovarian cyst to have been done in Portland, about 1870, and is also credited with having done the first operation of this type on the Pacific Coast, in San Francisco in 1865.[1]
It is also of interest to note that at least two years before Lister's important paper on "The Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery." Wythe employed an antiseptic fluid in washing wounds and in his surgical work. It will be recalled that Labarraque's solution is a compound of chlorinated soda, having some resemblance to the Dakin's fluid so much used in the military surgery of the Great War. The reference to carbolic acid in the passage above quoted from his address of 1870, was no doubt inspired by Lister's work. Whether or not the use of chlorinated soda in surgery was original with Dr. Wythe is problematical. As a standard solution for washing ulcers and for disinfecting purposes, as well as for internal administration for various diseases, Labarraque's solution is described in the reference books on materia medica of the time, but no mention is made of its use in surgery, if it was so employed.
Leaving Wythe's religious and medical interests at one side for the time being/let us consider another field of his activities. His interest in the microscope and the new realms which it revealed has already been mentioned. Where he obtained his introduction to this instrument, whether from Leidy, who one year younger, was his contemporary in Philadelphia, or from his own native interest, we can only conjecture. He must, at any rate, have thrown himself with enthusiasm into this field, for in 1851 he published the first edition of his book, "The
- ↑ Cal. State Jour. of Med., volume 1, 1903.
