A new cash-box makes the best of all medicine chests. No, you do not want partitions, nooks and crannies. The simpler the box is the better. But it must be clean. When you have got your box, dust it and rinse it out with warm carbolic solution, and let it thoroughly dry.
Now let us start to furnish it. Surgical necessities first.
A glass syringe, about eight inches long, with the piston fitted with an asbestos plug, and not wound round with string. This is useful for washing wounds, etc. A needle mounted in a holder for removing splinters, etc. A pair of small, well-made, nickel-plated forceps for removing splinters, etc. A pair of small, blunt-pointed, nickel-plated dressing scissors. These scissors are for cutting dressings, etc. No other pair of scissors must be used for dressings, and the dressing scissors must never be used for any other purpose.
These are all the instruments you require. They should be kept scrupulously clean, and wrapped up in small pieces of chamois leather when put away.
The dressings you require are these: Sal alembroth gauze. This is absorbent gauze impregnated with perchloride of mercury. It is coloured blue to distinguish it from other kinds of gauze. We have described how it is used for dressing wounds. It is an excellent material with which to dress any abrasion or cut or raw surface.
We are not going to allow you to have any poisons in your box, except carbolic acid. We must allow this, for it is indispensable. Oh, it is not that we do not trust you with poisons; but no one who is not a physician ought to keep poisons in her house, for you never know who may meddle with them. And besides, you can never get a sufficient knowledge of drugs to enable you to use any of the poisons with safety. Of course, perchloride of mercury is a very powerful poison, and so we suppose that sal alembroth gauze is too; but it is quite safe to keep it, and it can no more be called a poison than can lead water-pipes or silver spoons.
The second dressing you require is lint. This is very useful for many purposes, such as for spreading ointment upon or for making fomentations.
Then you want cotton wool. Either the best white absorbent wool or else the blue wool—the companion to sal alembroth gauze.
For bandages keep white calico ones, eight yards long, and two and one inches broad.
Just a little piece of sticking-plaster to keep dressings upon the face, where bandaging is difficult, and a fair-sized piece of either oiled silk or green protective to cover over fomentations, complete the list.