A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    252/554 (page 240)
    In making fixed dressings for surgical purposes, gelatin is employed in the same manner in which starch is. The addition of chalk to gelatin gives more solidity to the dressing, but on the whole it is inferior to plaster of Paris. , Diseases of the Skin.—Gelatin is employed in the treatment of skin diseases in baths (one pound dissolved in three quarts of boiling water to thirty gallons of water) or combined with glycerin as a jelly. Glycerin jelly is made by boiling together one part of gelatin and three or four parts of glycerin until they form a translucent mass. Of this as much as may be called for is taken and dissolved* by steaming. The medicinal ingredient, having in the meantime been finely rubbed up when requisite, with water or glycerin, is then added to the liquefied jelly and the resulting compound well shaken until it becomes a tenacious fluid, which may be moulded into tablets or poured into a vessel, the former mode of preparation being suitable for the soft and the latter for the hard jellies. The jellies can be melted at a low temperature and painted on the skin with a brush. They form smooth, comfortable dressings, and may be found useful when ointments cannot be conveniently applied. They are much employed by some dermatologists. We find them inconvenient of application excepting in a hospital, where all the neces- sary water-baths etc., can be easily obtained. The exact proportions of the ingredients of the soft glycerinated jellies are five per cent, gelatin, 20 to 30 per cent, glycerin and 60 to 70 per cent, water. To these are added the medicinal agent in the proportions required, usually five to ten per cent. The hard jellies contain ten per cent, gelatin, 40 to 80 per cent, glycerin, and 25 to 40 per cent, water. They are used by dropping a little boiling water on the surface of the cake of jelly and using a camel's- hair pencil to take up the rapidly drying solution and paint it on the affected parts. Diseases of the Nose.—Gelatin is useful as a medium for carrying iodoform to the interior of the upper portion of the nasal chamber. For this purpose the preparation should be freshly made, and mixed in any desired quantity. Old preparations of gelatin are apt to become stiff and do not easily dissolve. Gelatin forms the basis of Nasal Bougies. When combined with an equal quantity of glycerin and water, it is known as gelato-glycerole. It can be medicated or made to assume,, by the aid of moulds, a variety of forms. This agent can be carried to any part of the nose; it is of special value when retained in the space between the middle turbinated bone and the septum. It here slowly dissolves. Menthol forms an efficient compound with gelatin for Nasal Bougies