When the incisions are made, if the neighbouring parts appear somewhat tainted, we must, by gentle compression, squeeze out the corrupted humour which may harbour there, and wipe it off with a bit of soft linnen rag. Afterwards, whether it may have been necessary to extract, either with the fingers, a scalpel, or with the instrument called a myrtle leaf[8], any bony splinters too much detached from the substance of the bone itself to hope for a re-union, a circumstance which often requires a considerable dilatation of the fleshy parts; or whether the bones appear carious, or spoiled in any other shape; or, lastly, whether we may have been obliged to make deep incisions, even to the bone: In all these cases, we must at first employ such external applications as are proper for the bones, and for the soft parts that have a tendency to mortification, although they may have discharged a sufficient quantity of blood during these operations. The bone, whether the periosteum be sound or destroyed, must be dressed with the following medicine: _Of frankincense, mastick, sarcocolla and myrrh finely pounded, true balsam of Peru, and genuine essential oil of cloves, of each equal parts; of balsam of Fioraventi, as much as may, in mixing all the ingredients over a very gentle fire, form a thin liniment_; which must be warmed when used, and which must be poured plentifully into the wounds I am speaking of, so that the bone may be well moistened therewith. This medicine is of service in all cases where the bone is affected. When the bone is covered with it, some dry lint may be laid over it, and the soft parts dressed by sprinkling upon this lint a powder composed of _an ounce of myrrh finely pounded, half an ounce of sal ammoniac, camphor and nitre, each a dram_. After the first layer of lint is thus covered, fresh lint must be applied, and again sprinkled with the powder, till in this manner the cavity of the wound is quite filled up with alternate layers of lint, and this vulnerary powder. FOOTNOTES: [8] See Dionis's surgery, page 18. 4th edition. SECT. XI. If the bone is not affected, or the periosteum laid bare, the balsam or thin liniment may be omitted. And the dressings may only consist of the layers of dry lint and vulnerary powder applied alternately. SECT. XII. Besides the dressings I have mentioned (§ X. and § XI.) for these kinds of wounds, we must likewise make slight scarifications upon the neighbouring parts, and sprinkle them with the powder; after this treatment, embrocate all the sores with oil of turpentine, and then lightly bandage up the whole with plain linnen cloth, which must be kept moistened, night and day, with warm fomentations. SECT. XIII.