The essentials of bandaging /

by Berkeley Hill

Fig. 57.—Plaster of Paris Bandage, for simple fracture of the tibia, and common bed cradle.

Step 2. The surgeon carefully greases the limb wherever the plaster will reach, and rolls a Welsh flannel roller round it for about 3 inches at the point where the plaster roller will cease. This protects the skin from the rough edge of the plaster splint when the apparatus is set and hard. Indeed, if the whole of the surface to be covered with plaster be enveloped in a flannel roller, the apparatus is more comfortable to the patient, and in this case the grease may be dispensed with. When the limb is prepared the surgeon intrusts it to assistants, who will maintain reduction while he lays on the plaster rollers, wetting them freely as they are laid on, with a sponge at hand in a basin of cold water. Usually two layers of roller give sufficient rigidity to the apparatus; but if the limb is heavy, the case should be strengthened, by smearing over it a coating of plaster, prepared by shaking the powder into a basin of water kept constantly stirred, till it has the consistence of cream. The surgeon must watch that the fractured bones are kept in position till the plaster is set, a process sufficiently advanced in five minutes, when the bandage, supported by sand-bags, may be left to dry.

When the plaster is quite set the bone is immoveable and may be carried about without risk of displacement. In deciding what joints should be included in the bandage, the same rules obtain in this as for the starch bandage; no more joints should be rendered immoveable than are necessary to obtain command of the broken bone; when the fracture is near a joint, that must be confined to prevent the bones being moved with the movements of the joint; when the fracture is far away from it, sufficient control can be exercised over the bone to prevent the broken ends moving, and the joint may remain free.

If the plaster apparatus is applied over a wound, the latter should be covered with greased lint, and its position noted before the rollers are applied; when the apparatus is set, the plaster must be dissolved around the wound by touching it with strong nitro-hydrochloric acid; when this is carried completely round, the isolated fragment of plaster may be removed, and the wound exposed.

For removal, the roller can be unwound again readily, or it can be softened by acid along a line, and slit up with scissors, when the apparatus comes off in a piece.

Should bandages of loose texture not be at hand, common rollers can be made to answer the purpose tolerably well in the following way.

Having washed and dried the limb, and reduced the fracture; the bones are held in position by assistants, while the limb is greased and enveloped in a dry roller by simple turns and figures of 8. A basin of plaster is prepared by shaking the powder into water till a thin cream is formed, which is laid on the bandage with a spoon, or the hands. Then a second but wetted roller is put on in the same way quickly before the plaster has set, and covered in its turn, until a case of sufficient thickness is procured.

This bandage is much improved if the first roller be of flannel instead of calico. The flannel roller may be unrolled and loaded with dry plaster, like the muslin, and wetted before using; in this way it contains nearly as much plaster as the loose webbing rollers of muslin.

In the Army Medical Reports for 1865 (1867), Mr. Moffitt describes a very ready method of employing the plaster splints for recent fractures. Instead of bandaging the limb, an envelope of Welsh flannel is fitted to the part to be supported.