Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds / by John Bell.

  • John Bell
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds / by John Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/518 (page 2)
    o fiance, or re-unites in a more immediate way, the more fimple wounds. When we can prevail upon ourfelves to renounce this parade of idle words, and to refign alfo our fu- preme office of afiifting nature in “ mundifying, in- carning, and cicatrizing wounds, of filling the wound with found flefli, and of keeping it to the right level, fo as to make an even and feemly fear,” we (hall find our duties happily reduced within the narroweft bounds, viz. of faving the patient from immediate bleeding, and of laying the wounded parts fo cleanly, fo neatly, and fo evenly in contaift with each other, that they may adhere. The reft we leave to nature. I fear, that from my announcing a rule of conduct fo fimple as this is, you will fuppofe, that I mean to lpcak only of the flighter, and more trivial wounds; while I do really mean to include under this general view, the greateft and the fmallcft wounds; and to e- ftablifh but one rule for all, from the amputation of a limb, or the extirpation of a tumor, to the mod tri- vial cut of the cheek or hand. What is amputation but a wound ? The greateft wound,—clean and fair,—made carefully by the hand of the furgeon,—difpofed to heal in the eufieft way ? And in this great wound, (which, a fortiori, includes the doeftrine of every lefier wound), what is there to attend to, but the procuring of adhefion, or the flop- ping of the flow of blood ? What were the defects of the old operations, but that the furgeon knew not who to procure this adhefion ? that he had no means by which he could flop the bleeding ? The haeinor- 3