A manual of minor surgery and bandaging : for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners / by Christopher Heath.

  • 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 / by Christopher Heath. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    87/454 (page 67)
    INJUETER FnOi\r FIRE-AKArS AND GUNrOWDEK (!7 soldom be produced. Mercury may be combined with the antimony, and to be of any service must be ad- ministered in heroic doses and frequently ; but should the breathing become more embarrassed, the operation of laryngotomy or tracheotomy must at once be had recourse to. Injuries from fire-arms and gunpowder.—Gun- powder will inflict damage according to the mode in which it is exploded, rather than the actual quantity ignited. Loose powder scorches and burns the surface of the body severely, and, from the mode in which it ' flares up,' is very apt to injure the eyes and burn the hair off the head, besides driving particles of unburnt powder into the skin. These, if left, will give a very unsightly blue appearance to the patient, and it is worth while to spend some time in picking out the powder grains with a needle, while the injury is recent. In order to do this effectually, however, it will be necessary to put the patient under chloroform. The treatment of such injuries differs in no essential par- ticulars from that of ])urns generally. Compressed powder shatters and destroys by the force of the explosion, in addition to the damage done by the flame. A firework exploding in the hand, the burst- ing of a gun, or, still more commonly, of a powder-flask held over a light, will shatter the hand very severely. On admission to the hospital, the haemorrhage, if still existing, should be arrested by ligature or otherwise, and the state of the hand he carefully examined. In the case of children or adults without much self- control, it may be advisable to administer chloroform at once, and to do what is necessary while the patient is under the influence of the anaesthetic. If lingers are blown off, the adjacent tissues should be drawn together as far as may be, to form a stump ; or it inay be well, particularly in the case of patients of the better class, to remove at once the head of a meta- carpal bone, so as to improve the after-appearance of