Kilmer House

Fads and Cranks Wanted. If believers in antiseptic surgery were “fads and cranks” in 1897, then they were just the people Johnson & Johnson was looking for! In July of 1897, Fred Kilmer noted that “A leading drug journal recently treated editorially the whole practice of aseptic and antiseptic wound treatment as " ‘a fad, practiced by cranks.’ ” “We may excuse the editor’s ignorance,” Kilmer wrote, and went on to explain: “The simple and seemingly endless details that make up an aseptic technique seem fussy to those who stand without, but go into any hospital clinic or operating room, witn