Therapeutic wound drainage for the purpose of removal of collections of fluid or pus may well be one of the oldest forms of surgical therapy. With the development of abdominal surgery, during the last 100 years, wound drainage has played an important part in surgical technique. In spite of this fact, general agreement as to indications for, and technique of, drainage is still lacking.
Antibiotics, Wound Infection and Healing
Since the discovery of antibiotics fewer papers have appeared on the subject of prophylactic drainage. However, antibiotics, as we now realize to an increasing extent, have not solved the problem of wound infections, especially not in cases infected with resistant bacteria. Thus wound infection continues to be of major concern in presentday surgery.25 Prophylactic use of nowavailable antibiotics, as is generally agreed, is of little if any value and probably contributes to the development of resistant bacterial strains.35 Therapeutic