Complication Rate in General Surgical Cases

Abstract

THE prophylactic use of antibiotics in the hope of preventing disease or complications of disease has become almost routine in many phases of medical practice. This development, of course, has occurred only in the last fifteen years, since the discovery of penicillin, an effective antibiotic and one that is relatively innocuous in most cases, even when administered in large doses. Administration of antibiotics after surgery of all types has kept pace with this attempt at prophylaxis in other fields, rapidly developing from its use in contaminated cases, as in warfare, to its use without definite indications, after all types of . . .