ABSTRACTThe effectiveness of high pressure pulsatile lavage and syringe lavage in cleansing experimentally contaminated and infected wounds was studied. Such treatment significantly (P<0.05) lowered the bacterial counts in contaminated wounds, but high pressure pulsatile lavage caused extensive damage to tissue and was considered to be unsuitable for treatment of wounds in the loose skin areas of the dog. Both pulsatile and syringe lavage caused significant (P<0.05), but transient, reduction in the bacterial counts in infected wounds but both methods failed to lower the wound bacterial counts to 105or less. Successive wound biopsies for quantitative bacterial analysis showed that syringe lavage with povidone‐iodine caused greater reduction in bacterial numbers than did pulsatile lavage with povidone‐iodine. Combination of high pressure syringe lavage with povidone‐iodine and systemic penicillin‐streptomycin given at the time of lavage sufficiently reduced the bacterial numbers to allow for safe closure of the