COMPOUND FRACTURE, ABSCESS, ETC. 25 



wound about as large as a fourpenny-piece, on the outer aspect of the hmb. 

 Having extracted this fragment, he apphed hquid carbohc acid thoroughly to 

 the interior of the wound. This rather increased the bleeding, which, however, 

 he arrested completely b}- ])lugging the orifice with a bit of lint dipped in the 

 acid. Over this he placed a mixture of blood and carbolic acid, covering it 

 with a piece of dry lint. He then put up the hmb in two well-padded Gooch's 

 splints, retained in position with a continuous bandage. The apparatus was 

 left undisturbed for five days, when, on removal of the splints, it was found 

 that the piece of dry lint over the wound, though it had been saturated with 

 blood, was quite dry, having become incorporated with the crust beneath. 

 It was not interfered with except that the surface was touched with carbolic 

 acid, and the splints were reapplied as before, the part being quite free from 

 uneasiness. 



On the twelfth day the splints were again removed and the crust was 

 detached, when it was found that the piece of lint with which the wound had 

 been plugged had become partly pushed out of the orifice. The plug also was 

 now removed, when the surface beneath was observed to be granulating, but 

 entirely free from pus. The sore was dressed with one part of carbolic acid to 

 seven parts of olive oil applied on lint every second day, the use of the splints 

 being continued till the 8th of September, when she was discharged, with the 

 sore healed and both bones firmly united, two days less than four weeks after 

 the accident. 



This case is valuable as an example of a mode in which troublesome bleeding 

 in compound fracture may sometimes be advantageously arrested. The entire 

 absence of pus about the plug on the twelfth day after its introduction con- 

 trasts strikingly with the suppuration invariably caused within four days by 

 a piece of lint inserted without carbolic acid into a wound. 



Case 8. — Samuel B , aged thirteen, was admitted under Dr. ^lorton's 



care, on the 30th of August, 1866, with a compound fracture of the left femur, about 

 the junction of the upper and middle thirds of the shaft, and a simple fracture 

 of the right thigh in a similar situation. He stated that about four hours pre- 

 viously he was engaged in some work about a steam-engine, when he was struck 

 by one of the balls of t1ie ' governor', and hurled with great force against an 

 iron pillar. The men who brought him to the infirmary said that when he 

 was raised from the ground a jnece of bone was seen to protrude from a wound 

 in the left thigh, but was restored to its natural position by a medical man 

 who was called in to see him, and who aj^plied a long splint and bandage to each 

 limb. Mr. A. T. Thomson, on examining the boy, found a lacerated wound 



