Manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners.

  • Heath, Christopher, 1835-1905.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    rior branch of the temporal artery, and then making an incision across it—not so deeply, however, as to divide it. In order to arrest the haemorrhage and prevent the formation of a false aneurism, the lancet must be made to divide the artery thoroughly, and a pad must be firmly bandaged over the vround. Incisions into inflamed parts.—Incisions may be necessary in carbuncle, erysipelas, &c., and they re- quire care in their performance. An incision into a carbuncle, to do any good, must go right through it to the fascia beneath, and through the whole extent of brawny tissue (though carbuncle may often be more satisfactorily treated by a series of subcutaneous sections) ; whether the incision shall be made crucial or not will depend upon the extent of the disease. Incisions in erysipelas &c. should as a rule be made in the length of the limb, and not across it, and must divide the whole thickness of the cutis, since otherwise no relief is given to the tension. Xo fixed rule can be laid down for the length of the incision, but it is better to make two or three small ones than one large ' gash' for the whole length of the limb. In the case of all incisions, unless it is intended to abstract blood fi^om the part, care should be taken to arrest the flow of blood thoroughly before any warm poultice or fomentation is applied. This is most easily accomplished by placing strips of dry lint in the incisions and elevating the limb, or, if necessary, by applying in addition a bandage over the lint for an hour or two. The pledgets of lint should not be removed until they separate spontaneously in the poultice. Abscesses frequently come under the house-sur- geon's sole care, and he must open them on his own responsibility. In making a diagnosis of the presence of matter in a limb, the house-surgeon will do well to