[Features of the current stage in the study of surgical infection].

The article analyzes scientific problems for studying infection. Attention is paid to another role than that attributed by surgeons to staphylococci, gram-negative bacillus flora and anaerobes. A revision of the routinely used classification of surgical infections is shown to be necessary since their traditional division into purulent, putrifactive, anaerobic and specific ones is not up to the present state of science. It is noted that anaerobes take part in the appearance of 87% of postoperative complications and similar hospital infections.