Manual of minor surgery and bandaging for the use of house-surgeons, dressers and junior practitioners.

  • Heath, Christopher, 1835-1905.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: 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 Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    pected, and care should be taken in these cases not to overlook a fracture of the pelvis without displacement. Blood under the 7iail is a not uncommon result of a contusion of the finger, and is excessively painful from the pressure upon the sensitive matrix. With a fine sharp knife or needle the cuticle overlapping the base of the nail may be gently lifted until the blood is reached, when it can be sucked out; or if the blood is under the middle of the nail, it must be cautiously scraped through with the same object. Sprains, though apparently trivial, should never be neglected, since they too frequently lead to joint- disease. Although, in most cases, it is only the liga- mentous tissues which sufier, yet occasionally small prominences of bone are wrenched off, or, in youth, the epiphyses may be torn away. In all cases of sprain, therefore, a thorough but gentle examination of the joint should be made, and if this is impossible from the pain produced, chloroform should be had recourse to, rather than that an error in diagnosis should be committed. Unless seen immediately, the swelling is often so great as to mask the nature of the case, and no opinion should be pronounced until a thorough examination can be made. The local abstraction of blood by leeches is of great benefit in violent sprains, and the bleeding may be encouraged by hot baths or the application of linseed poultices. Subsequently, support of the affected joint is of the greatest importance, and this may be effected by careful bandaging, or, still better, by strapping with adhesive plaster, which has the advantage, not only of supporting, but of rendering the joint motion- less, much more effectually than the bandage. Strap- ping may, in most cases, be applied within thirty- six hours of the injury, and thus the patient will be enabled to get about with comparative comfort. Stimulating frictions are useful in the later stages.