A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    161/554 (page 149)
    General Surgery.—Grimm has shown that when applied to recent Wounds bromol has an irritating, almost caustic, effect. In Tuberculous Ulceration granulations are stimulated. Rademaker (7%^r«/. Monat- shefte, No. 3, 1891) dusts the powder on the ulcer, or employs it in a solu- tion in olive oil, 1-30, or in ointment i-io. BROMUM. Bromine. A liquid, non-metallic element obtained from sea water and from saline springs. (Ph. Br.) Bromine is a volatile liquid of a dark-red color when viewed in mass, but hya- cinth red when viewed in layers. Its taste is caustic, and disagreeable. It boils at about 63° C. (145-4° F.), forming a reddish vapor resembling that of nitrous acid. (U. S. D.) It dissolves in thirty-three parts of water at ordinary temperatures, but is more soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, and bisulphide of carbon. It dissolves freely in aqueous solu- tion of bromide of potassium, and a solution so made is available for external application. Bromine is a caustic. Its fumes are violently irritative to the respir- atory tract and their presence in the air excites lachrymation. The odor is intolerable to most persons. General Surgery.—Bromine finds its most important use in general surgery as an escharotic. Bonnet and Glover were the first to call atten- tion to this agent as a substitute for iodine in the treatment of scrofulous conditions, but experience has failed to establish its usefulness. Goldsmith introduced it in the treatment of Hospital Gangrene during the late civil war. Probably no topical application has greater effect in arresting the advance of this disease. D. H. Agnew com- mends its use in the highest terms, but advises that preliminary to its application the patient be etherized ; then all disorganized tissue should be removed with a pair of scissors and forceps, and the parts washed with a disinfectant. Next a mop or swab, made by fastening a piece of lint or cotton on the end of a stick, should be dipped in undi- luted bromine and worked into all the interstices of. the slough; or, if this is too compact, it should be broken up with a director, or a pair of dressing forceps be thrust in and opened, and a small quantity of the bromine injected into the opening from a small glass syringe. Where the parts are rapidly breaking down, as in the ulcerative variety, the simple application of bromine to the circumference of the diseased tissue will be sufficient to arrest the destruction. Bromine may also be used in the form of a vapor, the surface to be acted on being covered with dry lint, upon which is placed a cloth dipped in pure bromine, and the whole covered with oiled silk. Bromine acts by producing an eschar, the separation of which may be hastened by enveloping the part in a charcoal poultice. As a topical application in Cancer of the Uterus and other Foul Ulcers, a solution of bro-