"Kanavel produced the classic paper on infection in Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics in 1905. In that paper, he described the anatomy and clinical study of acute infections of the hand. This clearly changed the course of treatment for infections and has withstood the passage of time. The basic principles laid down by Kanavel continue to be appropriate today. He was working in the preantibiotic era and his delineation of the anatomic spaces allowed surgeons to approach infections in a new way, changing the clinical outcome from amputation to preservation of structures. His principles, with the addition of antibiotics, now makes the treatment of infections relatively predictable" (Wilgis, "Classic Papers in Hand Surgery", The Journal of Hand Surgery, 25, issue 1, January 2000).

The first comprehensive treatise on hand surgery, and the classic work on tendon and bursal hand spaces relevant to management of hand infections. Kanavel developed the method of forcible injection of radio-opaque material into tendon sheaths and fascial spaces of the hand; this enabled him to find a definite and constant pattern in the way that infectious material spread from sheath to space, and to drain infected areas without damage to important structures. Kanavel's classic work "did more to awaken the surgical conscience to the anatomic intricacies of hand surgery than did almost any other single contribution" (Bick). Kanavel put the work through seven editions between 1912 and 1933. Each successive edition of Kanavel's work bears substantial revisions; together these editions show the evolution of hand surgery over its first twenty years. Boyes, On the Shoulders of Giants, pp. 170-72.