If the dead part be protected from the ingress of putrefactive organisms, however, it separates from that which is living without the ordinary evidences of gangrene, and is then known as an " aseptic slough."
Recent work has shown it is too feeble to be relied upon alone, but where really efficient antiseptics, such as mercuric chloride and iodide, and carbolic acid, have been already employed, boracic acid (which, unlike these, is non-poisonous and non-irritant) may legitimately be used to maintain the aseptic or non-bacterial condition which they have obtained.
Administration is by subcutaneous injection preferably in the loose skin on the side of the neck, observing aseptic precautions.
Not only is the influence of bacteria in the causation of many of them newly revealed, but it is now recognized also that, even in skin diseases not initiated by microbic action, microbes play a considerable and often a determining part in their perpetuation; and that the rules of modern aseptic surgery are applicable with no little success to skin therapeutics.
The term aseptic is used to differentiate this type of meningitis from those caused by bacteria.
