In the case of a varicose vein or a small artery, this treatment will probably prove successful.
Whenever you cut yourself, the raw surface bleeds more or less. You can stop this kind of bleeding either by pressure, or by hot water. There is never anything to be alarmed at when blood oozes out from a wound, even though a considerable quantity of blood be lost. As long as there are not jets of blood, there is little danger in bleeding. Pressure will soon stop this form of bleeding.
That will do for the first and most important of all emergencies. What have we to put in our box for this purpose? Nothing at all. All we require is a hand and presence of mind.
Now about the treatment of wounds. First stop the bleeding, if this is severe. Then wash your own hands. Wash them well. Plenty of soap and hot water. Good hard work with the nail brush. Your hands should be absolutely clean before you meddle with a wound.
Now you will want some antiseptic. The best of all is carbolic acid. Mind you, this is poison. But if you are careful, and label the bottle and lock it up in your box, there is little danger in your possessing it. Your bottle of carbolic acid should be a good big one holding ten ounces at least. It should contain a solution of carbolic acid in distilled water of the strength of one part of pure crystallised phenol to twenty parts of water. It must be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle, which must be labelled—
“Carbolic Acid.
1 in 20.
POISON.”
When used for washing wounds dilute this fluid with four times its volume of warm boiled water. Having washed your own hands, thoroughly wash first with soap and warm water, and then with the carbolic solution, the skin round the wound of your patient. Do not be content with washing merely the immediate neighbourhood of the wound, but wash well round it in every direction.
Now to treat the wound itself. Take a perfectly clean basin and rinse it out with boiling water. Into this put your carbolic solution diluted with warm water to the strength of 1 in 80. Have plenty of the solution ready. Now wash the wound in the antiseptic. For this purpose you will require a small glass syringe and some pellets of perfectly clean absorbent cotton wool.
The wound must be absolutely clean—not a minute speck of dirt may be left in it. When you have washed the wound absolutely clean, take a small square of clean lint, wring it out in the solution of carbolic acid, and cover the wound with it while you take out the materials with which you are going to dress the wound.
You must not touch the table or the chair, and you must not touch your handkerchief or anything else, while you are dressing a wound. Microbes lurk everywhere except in the carbolic acid, and in the dressings, if they are clean. And if you are careful, you can prevent any germs from getting into the wound; and this is the most important thing in surgery. Do not let the dressings touch the table. Deposit them carefully on a clean towel, which you have previously wrung out with the carbolic solution, and laid upon the table.