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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    or the patient's skin will be scorched. When the cups are fitted with a little exhausting-syringe, the operation, though more tedious, is more easily per- formed. Whether the cupping is to be ' dry ' or ' wet,' the surface of the body should be sponged with warm water prior to the operation, and the cups be placed in a basin of boiling water before being used. The torch being then held beneath the cup, so that the fiame enters it without touching the glass, the air becomes rarefied, and the cup should be immediately applied to the skin, and gently pressed on to it so that the surface may fit closely to its edges. When the skin has risen well within the cup, it may be detached by introducing the nail beneath its edge, and the operation of dry cupping is completed. The scarificator used in wet cupping should be kept scrupu- lously clean, and its blades very sharp, and before com- mencing the operation they must be graduated to suit the thickness of the patient's skin, which can be best ascertained by pinching up a small piece between the finger and thumb. Care must be taken in the case of a fat patient not to set the blades too deeply, or they will cut through the skin and let the little pellets of fat protrude, effectually arresting the flow of blood. In using the scarificator, it must be pressed carefully against the skin, or it will slip and make very irregu- lar incisions, and the freshly exhausted cup must be applied immediately over the cuts. Each time the cup is removed, with its contained blood, the surface should be wiped with a warm sponge, that all coagula may be removed from the incisions before it is replaced ; and the cups should be plunged into hot water. A piece of dry lint, with a turn of bandage, will control all further bleeding when a sufficient quantity of blood has been abstracted. In cupping on the temple, after the cup is fixed, the lower edge should be a little elevated so as to take off pressure from the temporal artery beneath, or no blood will be obtained.