Specification of Robert Jackson : protective coverings to be used in cutaneous diseases.

  • Jackson, Robert.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Robert Jackson : protective coverings to be used in cutaneous diseases. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/8 (page 4)
    Jackson's Improvements in Protective Coverings to be used in Cutaneous Diseases. the bodies of persons who are thus attacked which are shielded or protected to a great extent from the access and influence of light and air are not “ pitted ” or marked after the patients’ recovery. In carrying out my Invention practi¬ cally, I have covered the faces of the patients so as to prevent as far as possible the access of light and air thereto ; this covering has in each case 5 been kept on during the career of the disease ; due attention being mean¬ while paid to the keeping of the suppurating parts perfectly clean by frequent and careful sponging with pure water and soap. In cases treated in this manner, where the surface of the diseased part is kept moist, the suppuration is assisted and facilitated, the disease more rapidly assumes a milder form, and 10 upon the patient’s recovery the skin is entirely free from the disfiguring blemishes so commonly met with under the ordinary medical treatment. The covering I prefer for protecting the face of the patient from the influence of air and light is a hood, so contrived as to cover the whole of the head and neck, but without interfering with respiration or the taking of food. That 15 portion of the hood which covers the face consists, by preference, of a mask of gutta percha, but any other yielding material of a non-porous or impermeable nature may be used for the purpose. The gutta percha I prefer to use is made in the form of thin sheets, resembling silk. A piece of this or other suitable material is cut of an oval form, corresponding to the size of the face; 20 two oval apertures are cut in it opposite the position of the eyes, a triangular opening at the part where the nose projects, and an opening corresponding to the mouth. Two pieces of glass or thin plates of mica or other transparent substance are cut to a shape corresponding to the eyes; these pieces are cemented to the eye openings of the mask with a solution of gutta percha, the 25 cemented parts being covered by slips of the sheet gutta percha, which serve to retain the pieces of glass or mica firmly in their respective places. Or, instead of this mode of securing the pieces of glass or mica, they may be fastened to the mask by sewing suitably shaped slips of the sheet gutta percha around the edges of the eye glasses or mica, when these have been 30 placed in their proper position over the openings in the mask. When these eye glasses are duly arranged, they offer but little impediment to the fiee use of the patients eyesight. A triangularly-shaped piece of sheet gutta peicha conformable to the shape of the nose is cemented, sewn, or otherwise fastened to the central opening in the mask; the lower part of 35 inis LosepiecG is made with openings corresponding to the position of the nostiils. Around the opening for the mouth a broad oval-shaped piece of the gutta percha is cemented, sewn, or otherwise attached; this secondary piece selves to strengthen this part of the mask, and admits of the motion