Will New Dress Code for UK Doctors Cut Infection Rates?

He points out that hospitals have come a long way since the Victorian practices described by Lord Moynihan (1865 -1936), one of the first surgeons in England to use rubber gloves. Describing a consultant from his medical student days in Leeds, Moynihan says: "The surgeon arrived and threw off his jacket to avoid getting pus or blood on it. He rolled up his shirt sleeves and in the corridor to the operating room took an ancient frock from the cupboard, it bore signs of a checkered past and was utterly stiff with blood. One of these coats was worn with special pride, indeed joy, as it had belonged to a retired member of staff."

Infection rates were huge during this period, says Jones, and someone having an amputation had a less than 50 percent chance of survival. "Surgery was the last resort and not the treatment of choice" he points out. "Indeed pus exuding from a wound, known as laudable pus, was seen as a sign of healing and thought to be essential."

Evidence of surgeons' attire from that period mainly comes from drawings and paintings of the time. And operating theatres were just what the name suggested – an auditorium with a raised platform where the surgeon would perform the operation in front of an audience.