Pye's elementary bandaging and surgical dressing : with directions concerning the immediate treatment of cases of emergency for the use of dressers and nurses.

  • Pye, Walter, 1853-1892
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Pye's elementary bandaging and surgical dressing : with directions concerning the immediate treatment of cases of emergency for the use of dressers and nurses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be well wrajfped up, and the exposure during the operation be reduced to a minimum. 2. The patient should be kept as dry as possible. Too often one sees him swamped with lotions which soon cool down and chill the surface. 3. An injection of morphia J to :j- gr., and atropine Tio to T&ir »r-> should be given. 4. All lotions used for the patient during the operations should be at or above the normal temperature of the body. 5. Purging and starvation, which form part of the routine preparation of a patient before opera- tion, should be curtailed. Often it is advisable to feed a patient a few hours before the performance of a serious operation. 6. Injections of saline with the addition of adrenalin may be given either into the veins or the submammary tissues, or a 6 per cent solution of glucose may be substituted for the saline. 7. It may be advisable to inject 4 per cent solution of cocaine into the main nerve trunks of a limb previous to the performance of the operation—a procedure which is said to be very valuable in blocking the nerve trunks and preventing the injurious impulses from affecting the higher centres. Remedial Treatment.—When once shock has supervened—-as shown by the slow, weak, often imperceptible pulse, the blanched surface, the feeble respirations, the loss of control over the bladder and rectal sphincters—remedial measures must be adopted. Allowing that our explanation of the cause of shock is correct, clearly we must endeavour to raise the blood-pressure, and trust to the final recovery of the higher centres if we assist them in their work, as we apply artificial respiration until the respiratory centre continues of its own accord. The most valuable form of treatment is the injection of saline, and in addition to the three methods of injection described below, we may, in