Hospital gangrene (Gangraena nosocomialis)

Abstract

Hospital gangrene refers to a historical presentation of septic wounds, which was associated to situation with a multitude of wounded patients. Later, it was proven that hospital overcrowding together with inadequate wound treatment options aggravated the spread of the infection by nurses and surgeons as well as contaminated wound dressings resulting in high morbidity and mortality in the affected hospitals and lazarettos. This article, which reviews the historical situation of this disease in Chile, mainly bases on reports of the physicians Rafael Wormald and Jacinto Ugarte, who reported on this topic in 1852 and 1873, respectively, and on outbreak occurring between 1860 and 1870 at Hospital San Juan de Dios in Santiago.