This being done, the operator lays aside his lancet, and takes up the dish, holding it so that the blood shall flow into it: when the dish is placed, he lifts his left thumb from the vein cautiously or the sudden spirt of blood will fall outside the dish and be lost. When the desired amount is drawn, the operator compresses the vein again with the left thumb, and setting down the dish, puts the pledget of lint over the wound. He keeps the pledget in place with his left thumb, while he releases the tape round the arm and places its middle obliquely across the pledget. His left thumb presses the pledget on the wound, while the right hand takes the end of the tape which is farthest from his left, and passes it under the forearm below the elbow to his left fingers, which grasp it tightly. He then takes the other end with his right hand (see fig. 17), and bringing it round the arm above the elbow, carries it across the pledget: as he does this, he replaces his left thumb on the compress with his right forefinger, which he keeps there while he brings up the end of the tape he has already in his left fingers, and throws it over the arm _above_ his right forefinger, then passing his left hand _below_ the right forefinger, he catches the same end of the tape again and draws it back. The two ends thus locked in a loop over the compress, are secured by tying them in a bow outside the elbow and the operation is finished (see fig. 18). [Illustration: Fig. 17.—Adjusting the tape after bleeding.] [Illustration: Fig. 18.—The bandage completed.] THE LOWER EXTREMITY. For adults the most useful width for the rollers is 3 inches, and the length the ordinary one of 8 yards. =The Foot= is usually bandaged without covering the heel, and the bandage is begun as follows:— The roller being held in the right hand for the right foot, or in the left hand for the left foot; the unoccupied hand takes the end, and passing it under the sole, brings it up on the back of the foot just behind the toes, where it is made fast by carrying the roller outwards over the back. When one turn is completed, the bandaging is continued by reverses until the metatarsus is covered, then one or two figures of 8 round the foot and ankle carry the bandage to the leg, where it proceeds upwards by spiral turns round the small of the leg, and by reverses up the calf. The reverses lie at equal distance up the leg, on the muscles, not over the bone, that the skin be not pinched between the crease of the bandage and the bone. When the calf is passed, the roller is continued by figures of 8 above and below the knee, until that joint is covered in, then by reverses up the thigh to the groin, where the bandage terminates by a spica round the body (see page 9). This is the ordinary bandage for the lower limb. There are some varieties for particular parts, these are:—