14 On the Treatment of Burns ana Scaids. 
week from the day of the accident, the small parts before al- 
luded to excepted, and which were ‘almost too inconsiderable to 
have been mentioned. It is worthy of notice, that during the 
greater part of the day on which the accident happened, so long 
as the hands were kept immersed in, the cold liquor, they were 
easy ; but if taken out for ever so short a time, the sensation of a 
most painfully burning heat came on—and likewise, if the li- 
quor in which they were immersed was permitted to become 
warm before changing. The only injury the parts sustained, 
was an almost entire separation of the cuticle—the cutis itself 
remaining perfect, the instances before mentioned excepted. The 
vesications, which were many and very large, I punctured the 
day after the aceident happened, and pressed the serum out ; 
and on the fifth day I removed the greater part of the detached 
cuticle —the cutzs itself being dry and free from abrasion :—not 
the slightest inflammation came on. 
This patient, residing at a distance from Oxford, returned 
home well on the sixth day from the accident, with scarcely any 
ether remains of the injury than tenderness, arising from the 
recently denuded cu/is. Whereas, I consider my experience war- 
rants me in asserting, that had she been treated in the first in- 
stance upon the ordinary stimulating plan, viz. by camphorated 
spiriés, or other articles of a similar nature, ulceration would 
have been the consequence, and the cure would probably have 
taken up more than as many weeks to have accomplished. 
| preier dread rubbed or grated small in these cases, for mak- 
ing the cataplasm, to lixseed flour, because the latter is more 
apt to heat, and moreover does not so readily admit of an equal 
diffusion of ‘the cooling liquor by i immersion. 
I forbear entering here into the secondary or subsequent mode 
of treatment necessary, when eschars or ulcerations ensue from 
burns or scalds; my object, in this paper, being to confine my- 
self to the primary y or immediate treatment of such cases. 
An attendant upon this gentlewoman had hkewise her hands 
burned at the same time, but in a much less degree. By pursuing 
the same plan of immersion throughout the day, and the appli- 
cation of similar cataplasms at re by the next morning they 
~ were nearly well. . 
I have witnessed almost every gradation of burns, from the 
slightest to the most important. ‘The most dreadful instance of 
these, and life still remaining, was a woman who was so terribly 
burnt, that the whole surface of her head, body, and her limbs, 
for the greater part, exhibited an appearance resembling wood, 
or any other combustible substance, completely charred. She 
lived several hours; during which time her sufferings were in 
~some degree alicviated by the application of cold, damp com- 
presses, 
