As these kind of wounds are liable of becoming ulcers, great care should be taken in the beginning to treat them properly.—Wounds in general should not be dress’d or look’d to too often; in general it aggravates the parts, and retards healing. A wound should not be opened the first three days after the first dressing: nature is very kind, and requires care only to replenish what is deficient. When an ulcer has commenced, see the treatment under that head. _Gun-shot Wounds._ These are the most terrible of all sorts of wounds; for it is not only the contusion that attends them, but frequently the ball forces strange things, as cloaths, &c. into the wound with it. Gun-shot wounds at best are tedious in their healing, but very often, from their nature, liable to mortification, and thence become dangerous. Besides, it is seldom that the fleshy parts alone are wounded, but they frequently penetrate into the very bones themselves. The first care in gun-shot wounds, is to extract the ball, or whatever is forced into the wound; in the next place, the wound should be dressed with _Yellow Basilicon_, (F) mixed with fine _Precipitate_ (O). No. I _Take Basilicon one ounce, fine Precipitate one scruple, and mix them._ The parts all round should be well fomented with warm claret, intermixed with _Spirits of Wine and Camphor_. If the patient is full-bloody, and no blood lost by the wound, he should be blooded, and immediately treated as a patient in a fever. If the pain in the parts become violent, eight or ten drops of _liquid laudanum_ (T), together with thirty or forty drops of _sweet spirit of nitre_ (D), should be given once, twice, or thrice a day. If the wound begins to discharge plenty of matter, it should be dressed with the same dressing often. But if the parts become black, very fœtid, the patient in great pain, and grows faint, a mortification is to be feared; which I shall treat of in its proper place. When the suppuration is unkind, and the parts are much inflamed, a poultice will be very proper. No. II _Take oatmeal (15) or (if that is not on board) biscuit pounded about three spoonfuls, honey one spoonful, water a sufficient quantity to boil it into soft poultice; in which put of sweet oil about half a spoonful. This poultice should be renewed twice a day at least, and put on as warm as possible it can be borne._ As gun-shot wounds are apt to degenerate into malignant ulcers, I shall refer the reader to the treatment of ulcers in general. ------------------------------------------- SECT. III. _Of Bruises._