Do not wash the wound, and do not dress it more frequently than every other day. If there be much discharge, let it be gently sopped up with soft old linen rag; but do not, on any account, let the burn be rubbed or roughly handled. I am convinced that, in the majority of cases, wounds are too frequently dressed, and that the washing of wounds prevents the healing of them. “It is a great mistake,” said Ambrose Parè, “to dress ulcers too often, and to wipe their surfaces clean, for thereby we not only remove the useless excrement, which is the mud or sanies of ulcers, but also the matter which forms the flesh. Consequently, for these reasons, ulcers should not be dressed too often.”
The burn or the scald may, after the first two days, if severe, require different dressings; but, if it be severe, the child ought of course to be immediately placed under the care of a surgeon.
If the scald be either on the leg or on the foot, a common practice is to take the shoe and the stocking off; in this operation, the skin is also at the same time very apt to be removed. Now, both the shoe and the stocking ought to be slit up, and thus to be taken off, so that neither unnecessary pain nor mischief may be caused.
287. If a bit of quicklime should accidentally enter the eye of my child, what ought to be done?
Instantly, but tenderly remove, either by means of a camel’s-hair brush or by a small spill of paper, any bit of lime that may adhere to the ball of the eye, or that may be within the eye or on the eyelashes; then well bathe the eye (allowing a portion to enter it) with vinegar and water—one part of vinegar to three parts of water, that is to say, a quarter fill a clean half-pint medicine bottle with vinegar and then fill it up with spring water, and it will be ready for use. Let the eye be bathed for at least a quarter of an hour with it. The vinegar will neutralize the lime, and will rob it of its burning properties.
Having bathed the eye with the vinegar and water for a quarter of an hour, bathe it for another quarter of an hour simply with a little warm water after which, drop into the eye two or three drops of the best sweet oil, put on an eye-shade made of three thicknesses of linen rag, covered with green silk, and then do nothing more until the doctor arrives.
If the above rules be not promptly and properly followed out, the child may irreparably lose his eyesight; hence the necessity of a popular work of this kind, to tell a mother, provided immediate assistance cannot be obtained, what ought instantly to be done; for moments, in such a case, are precious.
While doing all that I have just recommended, let a surgeon be sent for, as a smart attack of inflammation of the eye is very apt to follow the burn of lime; but which inflammation will, provided the previous directions have been promptly and efficiently followed out, with appropriate treatment, soon subside.
The above accident is apt to occur to a child who is standing near a building when the slacking of quicklime is going on, and where portions of lime, in the form of powder, are flying about the air. It would be well not to allow a child to stand about such places, as prevention is always better than cure. Quicklime is sometimes called caustic lime: it well deserves its name, for it is a burning lime, and if proper means be not promptly used, will soon burn away the sight.
288. “What is to be done in the case of Choking?”