CHAPTER III.[ToC]
OF SOME CASES IN WHICH THE CAUSTIC IS INAPPLICABLE.
It is by no means my intention to recommend the application of the lunar caustic as an infallible remedy for all local diseases. I am quite aware of the propensity, in recommending a favourite remedy, to extend its use beyond its true limits. The caustic, like all other remedies, requires to be employed with discrimination; and it is therefore my object in this little work, to state in which cases it is, and in which cases it is not, useful and successful.
With this object, I have thought it not improper to add, in a concluding chapter, some observations on those cases in which I have found the lunar caustic to be inadmissible. It will, at the same time, be found that such cases, in the course of their treatment by the ordinary measures, not unfrequently become fit cases for the application of the caustic, with the view of more speedily completing the cure.
This observation is particularly applicable to the cases of burns, of large ulcers, of fungous ulcers, &c.
The caustic is inapplicable in extensive lacerations, for the same reason that it is so in extensive ulcers.
I have found the caustic of little use in incised wounds, and should not employ it except in such wounds received in dissection.
I have failed in my attempts to heal scrofulous sores by the adherent eschar; I would propose the trial with the lunar caustic and poultice.