On the Treatment of Burns and Scalds. 9 
“means, in due time, suffered to regain its natural or ordinary 
state. 
It is proper to observe, that the author of this process entertains 
a decided opinion of the superiority of his own plan, in preference 
to the antiphlogistic one ; and that this opinion is sanctioned at 
present, I believe, by the practice of many gentlemen of emi- 
nence in the profession. 
The process of the stimulating plan, recommended and pur- 
sued by Mr. Kentish, is doubtless well known, being described 
in the various professional works, and therefore an account of it 
here is unnecessary. 
With respect to the theory, of which I have only given the 
leading principle, by which the good effect of the stimulating 
plan, in burns and scalds, is supported by Mr. K. I must con- 
fess it appears to me, as it does to some other professional per- 
sons, remote and unsatisfactory; but, after all, it must be ad- 
mitted that facts alone are to be relied on. 
Had this latter method been introduced into practice, at the 
time I had an opportunity of making observations at the Rad- 
cliffe Infirmary, I might probably have been prepared to have 
delivered an opinion respecting its comparative eilicacy in point 
of fact. 
In private practice, having good reason to be perfectly satisfied 
with the plan here recommended, I have judged it imprudent to 
adopt so bold, and, in my opinion, so indefensible a mode ef 
practice, upon the authority of any ‘person: therefore I have 
hitherto never tried it. 
For my own part, I consider cold, as the direct and proper 
antidote for heat ; and upon this principle, chiefly, [ think the 
immediate and remote ill consequences of a burn or scald are 
to be obviated; and amidst the various methods I have witnessed 
the trial of, in cases of this nature, no other mode of treatment 
has answered so well as the method I am now about to mention. 
In consequence of my observations, on cases of this kind, 
which occurred at the Radcliffe Infirmary, during a period of 
nearly five-and-twenty years, I collected that the following mode 
of treatment was the most successful; and, accordingly, I em- 
ployed it there, im those cases in which I had an opportunity, 
and which, with some slight variations, I still pursue. 
In the first place, 1 apply a dressing of the simplest emollient 
cerate ; viZ. one composed of wax and oil, spread rather thick, 
upon soft old linen of a close texture, in order to the exclusion 
of the atmospherical air ; an exposure to which, under these cir- 
cumstances, I consider to be extremely injurious; and imme- 
diately after, apply compresses soaked and wet with the liquor 
plumlet 
