114 WOUND TREATMENT 



one. To resort to the same measures in a venomous 

 wound would be an error fraught with much havoc. 

 Surgical interference with a wound in the active stage of 

 inflammation (a venomous wound) is capable of doing 

 harm by opening up new channels for invasion and thus 

 exciting rather than subduing the inflammatory process. 

 The mechanical disinfection — uncarpeting — previously 

 referred to for soiled wounds is not recommended in the 

 treatment of venomous wounds. When bacteria have 

 already injected the tissues with poisons and have them- 

 selves invaded more or less deeply into the tissues, me- 

 chanical disinfection is no longer indicated. That is to 

 say, when a wound already shows a pronounced local 

 reaction of swelling, pain, redness and probably a sys- 

 temic febrile reaction, it is too late to transform it at 

 once into an aseptic wound. We must now manage it in 

 another manner. Radical extirpation or amputation 

 may be called for when a venomous wound actually 

 threatens life, but such measures are rarely expedient 

 in animal surgery. 



The evacuation of purulent collections, from the hot- 

 bed of the infected center, and the trimming off of ele- 

 ments actually dead, are the only surgical treatments 

 to which a venomous wound should be submitted, and 

 these measures should be carried out carefully so as to 

 inflict as little injury to the inflammatory surroundings 

 as possible. If we meddle too much with an inflamed 

 wound a more and more serious state is produced. An 

 aggressive attack upon an inflamed trauma is always 

 harmful. When such a wound has been evacuated of its 

 purulent collection and the accessible dead elements have 

 been removed, the advancing process must be left largely 

 to the reactive forces of the body. Antiseptic packs 

 covering the wound and the swollen environs is a stand- 

 ard treatment. In humans it is never omitted, and the 



