206 



250 a month. A year later it had reached 150,000, and at the 

 present time it is nearly a million. The Canadian Red Cross 

 alone is now putting out betvveen two and three hundred thousand 

 sphagnum dressings each month. 



In our own country the sphagnum enterprise, so far as the 

 National Red Cross is concerned, is still in its infancy. But we 

 have long since passed the stage of experimentation and have 

 reached the stage where sphagnum dressings are being produced 

 in considerable quantities. The American Red Cross has re- 

 cently turned out half a million sphagnum dressings for the 

 Italian army, and something over twenty thousand a month are 

 now being made for American war hospitals. But the sphagnum 

 work of the American Red Cross is not yet being conducted on 

 the large scale which it is anticipated that it will be in the near 

 future. For one thing, our American army surgeons, accus- 

 tomed to the use of absorbent cotton and still having plenty of 

 this on hand, hesitate about adopting a substitute. It is inevi- 

 table, however, that sooner or later the value of sphagnum in 

 war hospital work will be more fully appreciated in this country : 

 for the quality of the cotton is constantly becoming poorer, while 

 the price is soaring higher. Moreover, wherever the sphagnum 

 dressings have' been tried out in our hospitals, they have given 

 complete satisfaction. 



For just ivhat purpose is the sphagnum used in surgical work? 



Sphagnum is used to replace cotton in absorbent surgical 

 dressings — in what are known technically as absorbent pads, or 

 compresses. 



But, so long as there is plenty of cotton, why trouble with a sub- 

 stitute? And, if it is desirable to use a substitute, why select sphag- 

 num rather than something else? 



For use in absorbent surgical dressings sphagnum moss is not 

 merely a satisfactory substitute. In many respects, without 

 question, it is superior to absorbent cotton.* 



First of all, sphagnum will absorb liquids much more rapidly 

 than absorbent cotton — about three times as fast. 



In the second place, the sphagnum will take up liquids in 



* The following observations are taken mainly from Porter, op. cit. 



