On a new method of treating wounds, (Gruby's system) and the medical and surgical aspects of the siege of Paris : outlines for a non-official report (mémoires pour servir) to the physician to the Rt. Hon. the Minister of State for India : (including investigations concerning pyaemia, the danger of the introduction of calf vaccination into our Indian possessions, the tent-hospital system, &c.) / by Cameron J.F. Stuart Macdowall.

Macdowall, Cameron Joseph Francis Stuart, 1832-

Date:: 1871

Credit: On a new method of treating wounds, (Gruby's system) and the medical and surgical aspects of the siege of Paris : outlines for a non-official report (mémoires pour servir) to the physician to the Rt. Hon. the Minister of State for India : (including investigations concerning pyaemia, the danger of the introduction of calf vaccination into our Indian possessions, the tent-hospital system, &c.) / by Cameron J.F. Stuart Macdowall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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and nooks, and crannies ; the oil carrying with it per- haps only one fibre, or even none at all (where its pas- sage is impossible). Here another principle comes into play. When oil comes into contact wdth albumen, it is well knowm that they, especially if motion be present, form an emulsion, that the oil is separated into globules, each covered with a fine pelicle of albumen. Dr. Gruby main- tains that in a wound there is always sufficient motion for this. First, there is the constant beat of neighbouring arteries; there is the motion through the capillaries, which must cause some commotion, however imperceptible; and there is the vermicular and involuntary motion in muscle almost constantly going on. Indeed, in all the wmunds I have seen dressed by this method, I have distinctly seen an emulsion formed ; the secretion of pus has been very mo- derate in quantity, and there has been (even on holding a twenty-four hours’ dressing close to the nostrils) no offensive smell whatever. A pad of cotton is placed over the pellets imbibed with oil, and, being bandaged, it is to be remarked that motion on the outer surface of the pad does not neces- sarily affect those portions of oiled cotton sticking in the wound.* In India, where lint is so great a source of expenditure to the State, and where cotton is abundant and cheap, where grain-oils (such as sesame-seed oil, &c. &c.) are not expensive, this mode of dressing wounds, from which I have witnessed some wonderful cures, seems to be pecu- liarly applicable. Not a single case of pyaemia or gangrene occurred amongst Dr. Gruby’s patients. * This prohably accounts for the fact that all the patients I saw told me that they had never suffered any pain, to speak of, from first to last.

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