The history of inoculation and vaccination for the prevention and treatment of disease : lecture memoranda / XVIIth International Congress of Medicine, London, 1913.

  • Burroughs Wellcome and Company.
Date:
[1913?]
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Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: The history of inoculation and vaccination for the prevention and treatment of disease : lecture memoranda / XVIIth International Congress of Medicine, London, 1913. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A celebrated ointment which enjoyed a great reputa- tion in the Middle Ages as a dressing for all kinds of wounds was called “ Egyptian ointment.” It was com- posed of honey, i lb.; vinegar, i lb.; sulphate of copper, ^ oz.; and alum, ^ oz. The name of the originator of this formula is unknown, but as a dressing it undoubtedly possessed antiseptic properties, and must to some extent have justified its reputation. It is said to have proved to have been the most effective weapon against putrefaction, and as late as the eighteenth century, Bordenave, a French investigator and surgeon, states that he used it with success to restrict to a certain point putrefaction which threatened a whole limb. Braunschwig, a German surgeon (1497), was another wEo regarded gunpowder as a poison, and recom- mended, in order to neutralise its evil effects, Braun- that warm oil of violets should be poured into the wound. He also advocates camphor and treating . j wounds oil of turpentine as local dressings, and recommends that wounds should be kept open by means of tents, rubbed with pork fat. Little progress was made in surgical treatment until the end of the fifteenth century. The surgeon of that period still relied on the red-hot cautery to arrest the flow of blood, and then dressed the wound with an ointment composed probably of dried earthworms in powder, Armenian bole, camphor and oil of roses. He might, indeed, have also inserted a drainage tube of reed or animal membrane, such as the windpipe of a rabbit. The mortality from haemorrhage on the battlefields and in operations at this period must ha\e been terrible, for the boiling pitch, or oil, the red-hot iron, the styptic pellets, and other primitive methods ot arresting blood were quite inadequate, and must a times even have accelerated death. During the sixteenth century, the idea that air ha some effect on wounds seems to have suggeste itse several surgeons. Fallopius states that he stu le action of air on wounds, and tried its effects.