Of course the dressing you use must vary a little with the nature of the wound you are treating. If the wound is sharp cut or is perfectly clean and not ragged, dust it over thickly with powdered boracic acid. Then cover it with a small piece of absorbent gauze—the blue “sal alembroth” gauze is the best. Swathe thickly in cotton wool and put on a clean bandage.
There is no need to again dress the wound, unless it becomes hot and painful. If you have got the wound absolutely clean, when the dressings have been on for a few days, it will have completely healed without discharging more than a few drops of fluid. If, however, the wound smarts, it must be dressed again, and possibly every other day. It should be dressed in the same way as it was in the first instance.
When the wound is very jagged, or impossible to get thoroughly clean, it is best to put on fomentations for the first day or two.
Fomentations have taken the place of poultices in modern surgery. Never put a poultice of any kind near an open wound. All your care and cleanliness will go for nothing if you do.
To make fomentations take a square of lint and fold it twice. Then wring it out in boiling carbolic solution (1 in 80) and apply it as hot as it can be borne. Cover it with a square of oiled silk, put on a thick layer of wool, and bandage. Fomentations should be renewed three or four times a day.
When treating a wound, never use sticking-plaster except to keep on a dressing. Sticking-plaster must never be placed on a wound, and above all it must not cover the wound. If it does so, it will keep the discharge locked up under it. The discharge will decompose, and a very serious state of affairs may intervene. Free drainage is essential in all wounds, and if this is interfered with, the wounds will go wrong.
What have we to put in our box for the treatment of wounds? The following—
Carbolic acid solution, powdered boracic acid, sal alembroth gauze, surgeon’s lint, absorbent cotton wool, oiled silk, bandages, pair of scissors, syringe (glass).
Burns are common accidents, and though they do not call for such rapid treatment as do wounds, nevertheless, it is always advisable to see to them at once.
The pain of burns and scalds is often very severe, especially when the flesh is not deeply burnt. You can relieve the pain by the application of sweet oil, or by an emulsion of sweet oil and lime water, sometimes called carron oil. The latter is better, but the former can be obtained in any household, so it is not worth while filling up your box with the emulsion.