or tinfoil strengthened with adhesive plaster. The
tin sheet lead used for lining tea chests will also answer the
purpose, and may be obtained from any wholesale grocer.] When all
discharge has ceased, the use of the paste is discontinued, but
the original rag is left adhering to the skin till healing by
scabbing is supposed to be complete. I have at present in the
hospital a man with severe compound fracture of both bones of the
left leg, caused by direct violence, who, after the cessation of
the sanibus discharge under the use of the paste, without a drop
of pus appearing, has been treated for the last two weeks exactly
as if the fracture was a simple one. During this time the rag,
adhering by means of a crust of inspissated blood collected
beneath it, has continued perfectly dry, and it will be left
untouched till the usual period for removing the splints in a
simple fracture, when we may fairly expect to find a sound
cicatrix beneath it. We cannot, however, always calculate on so
perfect a result as this. More or less pus may appear after the
lapse of the first week, and the larger the wound, the more
likely this is to happen. And here I would desire earnestly to
enforce the necessity of persevering with the antiseptic
application in spite of the appearance of suppuration, so long as
other symptoms are favorable. The surgeon is extremely apt to
suppose that any suppuration is an indication that the antiseptic
treatment has failed, and that poulticing or water dressing
should be resorted to. But such a course would in many cases
sacrifice a limb or a life. I cannot, however, expect my
professional brethren to follow my advice blindly in such a
matter, and therefore I feel it necessary to place before them,
as shortly as I can, some pathological principles intimately
connected, not only with the point we are immediately
considering, but with the whole subject of this paper. If a
perfectly healthy granulating sore be well washed and covered
with a plate of clean metal, such as block tin, fitting its
surface pretty accurately, and overlapping the surrounding skin
an inch or so in every direction and retained in position by
adhesive plaster and a bandage, it will be found, on removing it
after twenty-four or forty-eight hours, that little or nothing
that can be called pus is present, merely a little transparent
fluid, while at the same time there is an entire absence of the
unpleasant odour invariably perceived when water dressing is
changed. Here the clean metallic surface presents no recesses
like those of porous lint for the septic germs to develope in,
the fluid exuding from the surface of the granulations has flowed
away undecomposed, and the result is the absence of suppuration.
This simple experiment illustrates the important fact that
granulations have no inherent tendency to form pus, but do so
only when subjected to preternatural stimulus. Further, it shows
that the mere contact of a foreign body does not of itself
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