The physician Thomas Percival advised surgeons to change their aprons and to clean the table and instruments between procedures, not for hygienic purposes, but to avoid “every thing that may incite terror.” Few heeded his advice. The surgeon, wearing a blood-encrusted apron, rarely washed his hands or his instruments and carried with him into the theater the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh, which those in the profession cheerfully referred to as “good old hospital stink.”
