Volume 5

An ephemeris of materia medica, pharmacy, therapeutics and collateral information / by Edward F. Squibb.

  • Squibb, Edward Robinson, 1819-1900.
Date:
1885-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An ephemeris of materia medica, pharmacy, therapeutics and collateral information / by Edward F. Squibb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/444 (page 1935)
    Its absolute comfort leaves nothing to be desired ; under its use there is not, from first to last, the least discomfort except a momen¬ tary smarting on the first application, too trivial to be worth men¬ tioning. The most exquisitively sensitive sore can in a few days be handled with impunity. There is no odor, even of the carbolic acid. It absolutely inhibits suppuration where it can reach the wound surface, and it checks and quickly abolishes suppuration if that be already present. The powder should be changed twice a day as long as there is a discharge to moisten it; soon, however, the wound becomes absolutely dry, and the powder may be left for days un¬ disturbed, and will still be found as dry as when applied, unless there is a pocket from which pus may come. Cicatrization is rapid and satisfactory. “ Obviously, this powder would be unsuitable for introduction into a cavity, unless it was intended that the cavity should granu¬ late from the bottom ; and, in that case, the possibility of easy re¬ moval of the masses formed by the pus soaking into the powder before the wound becomes dry, should be considered. On an accessi¬ ble granulating surface, and upon a sutured wound, it is the near¬ est to a perfect dressing I have yet seen.” Dr. E. S. Boland, of Boston, Mass., writes to The Boston Med. and Surg. Journ. (Vol. CXXXVII., page 95) a word of caution : “ The present writer has just had to help care for a severe case of acetanilid poisoning in a young man of 19 years, in which the drug was absorbed from an immense burn of the second degree in¬ volving the entire back, at least two square feet being affected. “ On the sixth day after the accident, the discharge being rather profuse and offensive, the drug (acetanilid) had been used to hasten cicatrization and to render the wound less offensive. “ From disuse of the old endermic method of administering medi¬ cine, we are apt to forget how much a recently blistered surface can absorb. “ Four hours after the application this patient was in collapse, and with livid lips, black finger-nails and general cyanosis, he looked startlingly like a recently-drowned corpse. At times the pulse could not be felt at the wrist, and he could not be aroused ex¬ cept by the most powerful stimuli, and even these failed at the cli¬ max of his depression. When aroused, his mind was clear and no pain was complained of. “The treatment was cardiac and general stimulants, hypodermi¬ cally and by the mouth, the application of heat and inhalation of