O much interest has been expressed in the new method of treating wounds discovered by Dr. Carrel and bearing his name, and the subject being of such great importance to the cause of humanity and the preservation of human life, I have thought it worth while to give here the following authoritative descriptions of this new and epochal discovery in the science of medicine. It is now generally known as the Carrel-Dakin treatment.
Reference has been made to meeting Dr. Sherman in London. On discovering that this physician had enjoyed considerable experience with the Carrel treatment and was thoroughly familiar with it, I invited him to deliver an address on this subject at my home town after his return from Europe. He readily agreed to do this, speaking to an interested audience under the auspices of the Mahoning County Medical Society on Dec. 19, 1916. A newspaper account of this address is appended. This will, in a measure, serve to show the importance of the Carrel treatment.
Out of the horror and carnage that is raging across the seas some inconceivable good must come. This is the opinion of all who have been close to the din of battle, who have visited hospitals and seen with their own eyes the human wrecks wrought by grape shot, shrapnel and bursting shells. Dr. William O'Neill Sherman's visit to this city Tuesday night, when he opened the eyes of the medical profession here to new and greater things, is the first inkling of one great good that is to come out of this war. To treat the millions of wounded and maimed, medical genius has been taxed to the limit. As in all great times, great minds have come to the rescue and found a way. The old saying that where there is a will there is a way, has been clearly proven.
Particularly is this true in the medical world. Dr. Sherman came here from Pittsburgh, the invited guest of the Mahoning County Medical Society, at the suggestion of J. G. Butler, Jr., who wanted him to tell the physicians of this city and county the many things he had learned by close application and association with conditions in European hospitals and trenches. Dr. Sherman was filled with an enthusiasm that he made every man who attended the annual banquet of the Mahoning Medical Society feel. Particularly was he anxious to bring the local medical fraternity to a realization of the methods and treatments developed by the horrible carnage raging now in the European countries. He drove home his point without gloves when he told physicians of Youngstown that medical men throughout this country were given too much to criticising new methods rather than investigating them.
The Carrel method, he explained at length. It is simply a newly discovered antiseptic solution, conceived by Dr. Alexis Carrel, which sterilizes wounds and arrests infection and inflammation before they have an opportunity to spread and result in blood poisoning and death.
[Illustration: Proclamation Posted in Reims Just Before the French Fell Back to the Marne. (See Chap. XXV.)]
TRANSLATION
REPUBLIC OF FRANCE, CITY OF REIMS
TO THE INHABITANTS