Medical and surgical memoirs / by Nathan Smith ... ; edited with addenda, by Nathan R. Smith.

  • Smith, Nathan, 1762-1829.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and surgical memoirs / by Nathan Smith ... ; edited with addenda, by Nathan R. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    375/396 (page 359)
    “= the arm, removed. A small roll of linen, of the thick- ness and breadth of the finger, shou!d then be laid up- on the vein, and bound firmly upon it by a bandage, which should be drawn more tightly below than above the elbow. Motion of the arm should then be avoided Wounds of veins in other regions of the body are to @ Treatment of Wounds inflicted by cutting instruments Unquestionably the most valuable acquistion: of modern surgery, is the method at present employed by intelligent surgeons in the treatment of simple wounds. But although it is now near fifty years since it has been generally adopted by English surgeons, and al- though it is extremely simple, rational, and intelligible, it is by no means generally known and approved by those who are uneducated in medicine. Indeed its very simplicity is perhaps the reason why. it is not gen- erally received. After some thousands of years’ experience had elaps- ed—after almost every substance which the three kingdoms of nature can furnish had been tested, and balsams, vulneraries, styptics &c. without number, had tortured the wounds of sufferers for ages, it was at length discovered that there is no such thing as a heal- ing virtue in any remedy—that the healing of a wound nothing but the work of nature—of a restorative prin- ciple identified with the principles of life, and by which each organ is, to a certain extent, enabled to felt the mischiefs of injury and disease.