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.

    49/256 (page 25)
    Lcech-hifes give trou])le occasionally ; aud should <?old and pressure lail to slop the bleeding, a line- pointed stick of nitrate of silver may be inserted into each wound. As a last resource, a needle or hare- lip pin may be inserted tln-ough the skin so as to transfix the bite, and a twisted suture be placed over it. Inter media)-)/ licDmorrliacjc is that occurring soon after an operation, and before inflammatory action has supervened. Small vessels, which did not bleed at the time of the operation, may begin to do so on the patient's becoming warm in bed, and the bandages, &c., will become more or less stained with blood. This need occasion no alarm imless the blood soaks com- pletely through, and begins to drip away from, the dressings, when immediate steps must be taken for its arrest. In the case of a stamp after amputation, for instance, the soaked dressings should be removed, and the stump raised and exposed to a current of cold air, while gentle pressure is made iipon the main artery with the finger or a tourniquet. If these measures arrest the bleeding, fresh cold dressings may be ap- plied ; but the limb had better be elevated, and the pressure gently maintained for a few hours, to avoid its recurrence. If this treatment does not succeed, the sutures must necessarily be divided, and the surfaces of the wound separated, in order that a ligature may be applied to the bleeding point; or if, from any reason, that is impracticable, a fine-pointed actual cautery may be had recourse to as a last resource. In the practice of those surgeons who leave the flaps of amputations apart for a few hours, intermediary haemorrhage is much less likely to occur; should there be any oozing however, care must be taken to remove with a soft sponge any clot which may have formed, and which would pi'event the immediate cohesion of the flaps which it is desired to obtain. Intermediary hasmorrhage 0