An essay on the means of lessening the effects of fire on the human body / James Earle.

  • Earle, James, Sir, 1755-1817.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the means of lessening the effects of fire on the human body / James Earle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    fe£t this purpofe, I muft again obferve that I think myfelf well warranted in main- taining ice to be fuper-eminently ufeful. The mode of its action on a burn may poffi- bly be accounted for on the fame grounds as the paffage of the ele&ric fluid, by the doc- trine of plus and minus, ice being a fubftance which has acquired folidity by the depriva- tion of heat, readily abforbs it from warmer bodies till they become of the fame degree of temperature. Ice applied to a hand in a na- tural healthy jftate, gives pain, and why ? be- caufe it deprives it of its due, inherent, vital heat ; on the fame principle if a part buffers -4 pain by being overcharged with heat from having been expofed to the application of fire, ice will give eafe, by abforbing the fu- per-abundant heat which had taken poffef- fion of it. Jt follows then that the fooner it is applied after the accident has happened the better, as the \