162 



OPERATIONS ON THE SKIN AND CELLULAR TISSUE. 



it will be everyway advantageous to have tlie patient thrown down 

 and secured, in order that the region to be fired may be exj)osed 

 as freely as j)Ossible — a point which has already been considered. 



The parts upon which the firing is to be made must be thor- 

 oughly cleaned and es]Decially free from scabs or greasy sub- 

 stances. The hail- is to be chpped short whenever its length and 

 thickness are likely to interfere with the action of the instrument ; 

 yet the skin must not be shaved, inasmuch as a thin coat of hair 

 will always prove rather an assistance than otherwise, in drawing 

 the first lines, by preventing the instrument from sHpping. 



There was a period when animals were fired with a view to 

 their alleged ornamentation, without any pretext of necessity aris- 

 ing from disease, but simj^ly in conformity to the behest of fash- 

 ion (and possibly as a means of the identification of property), but 

 this artistic firing for fashion's sake is now altogether discarded, 

 and the burned-in shapes of fern leaves, stars, crosses, harps, etc.. 



m. — — T— — 



Fig. 202.— Old-fashioned Drawings. 



etc., have made room for firings inflicted for better reasons and 

 with more beneficient and valuable results. 



And while the results of these sesthetic and artistic firings 

 made for purposes of embeUishment were usually ugly, un- 

 sightly cicatrices, thickened and hairless, the operations of the 

 present time leave as their sequelae but sHght and superficial 

 marks, which are hardly entitled to rank as blemishes, though in 

 this connection must not be included the Prange firing (Fig. 203), 

 which, with its pecvdiarity, is applied as the ordinary line firing, 

 except that the Hnes are divided in small sections. 



Firing in hnes must be appUed not only upon the diseased 

 part, but must extend somewhat beyond it, and the lines must be 

 made as nearly as possible parallel with the direction of the hair. 



