A manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners.

  • Christopher Heath
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A 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 University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    two, so as not to scald the patient's skin, and must next be applied to the part to which it is intended the splint should be fitted. The wet fingers of the operator should then mould it carefully to the limb, and afterwards a bandage had better be applied so as to maintain it in position until cooled. In a quarter of an hour the splint may be removed, and any rough- ness of tlie edges trimmed oft' with a sharp knife, when it may be padded with wool, or lined with wash- leather plaister, and will be fit for use. In order to obviate the unpleasant confinement of the perspiration which the gutta percha causes, it will be advisable to malce a series of holes in the splint, when perfectly cold, with a punch of the diameter of an eighth of an inch or more; and if the splint is lined with leather, it should also be perforated in the same way. In fitting a gutta percha splint to a case of fracture, care must be taken to bring the parts into the exact position they are intended to occupj^ eventually, before the gutta percha cools, or the mould will be useless; and in some cases, therefore, it will be better to shape the splint upon the corresponding portion of the sound limb, and afterwards make any little alteration which may be necessary for the opposite side. Leather.—Thick sole-leather may be used for making splints, being cut to the appropriate shape with a shar]) knife, and then softened in hot vinegar and water before being moulded to the limb, in the same way as the gutta percha, over which it has the advantage of not interfering with the functions of the skin, but is otherwise not so manageable as the gum. On an emergency, very serviceable splints may be improvised out of cardboard, an old hat-box, or even an old hat itself. ImmoveaUe apparatuses.—Under this head 1 shall describe the mode of applying bandages to which cer- tain adhesive substances are added, with the view of