H. A. COTTELL, M. D., Editor.
A Journal of Medicine and Surgery, published on the first and fifteenth of each month. Price, $2 per year, postage paid.
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THE ART OF NEGLECTING WOUNDS.
The New York Post-Graduate Clinical Society[[2]] was recently treated to a moving discourse on the novel subject of “The Art of Neglecting Wounds,” by Dr. Robert T. Morris, one of the instructors in surgery in the Post-Graduate School.
[2]. The Post-Graduate, Vol. XIII, No. 13, January, 1898.
The author confined his remarks to wounds made by the surgeon when operating, and hints pretty strongly, though he does not say so, that their subsequent treatment even by the surgeon himself might not inappropriately be called “meddlesome surgery.”
For instance: In incised wounds (the margins of which have not been quite approximated) the capillaries begin to develop granulation tissue in the coagulated lymph deposited upon the surface in a few hours if the trophic nerves have not been much injured. This granulation tissue is extremely delicate and will not bear handling. When such a wound is suppurating freely the strong temptation to wipe away the pus with sponge or gauze should be resisted for two reasons, first, “Granulation tissue suffers traumatism whenever it is touched, no matter how lightly, and, as a result of such traumatism, there will be developed exuberant granulation tissue, which will be poorly supplied with blood-vessels. We have in weak granulations, so to speak, what might be called ‘watered stock.’ It is a very common result of our well-intentioned but ill-directed efforts at keeping the wound clean.”