WOUNDS AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



By a wound we mean any injury which lacerates or punctures the 

 skin, no matter what is the depth. Wounds are chissified according to 

 various authors in the following manner: 



1. Their location, whether they are in the head, neck, chest, or 

 extremities. 



2. According to their depth into the muscles or l^ones, they are 

 called penetrating or non-penetrating. Those that injure the skin 

 slightly are called lacerations or excoriations. 



3. They are also termed longitudinal, transverse, or oblicjue, accord- 

 ing to their direction or length. Regular or irregular — that is, indented 

 or -flap wounds. 



4. Their cause is also considered, whether produced by cuts, blows, 

 lacerations, concussions, bites, or gunshot. These causes, however, are 

 of no special importance. 



Clinical Symptoms. — All wounds are accompanied by three symp- 

 toms: the open, gaping condition of the edges of the wound, hemorrhage, 

 and pain. As a rule, the wider the wound the deeper it is. If the wound 

 is long but does not gape, it corresponds with the direction of the muscle or 

 the tissue beneath it. On the other hand, wounds across muscles are 

 much wider and gape more, this being due to the retraction of the 

 muscles. 



The bleeding is either arterial, venous, or capillary. The former may 

 be recognized by the fact that the blood from the wound is mixed with 

 more or less light-colored arterial blood. The danger of such arterial bleed- 

 ing depends on the size of the arteries and how severely they have been 

 injured. In small arteries the bleeding generally stops of its own accord, 

 due to contraction of the severed blood vessels; but in large arteries the 

 animal will frequently bleed to death unless surgical interference stops 

 it. In cases where the artery is cut in a transverse wound the hemorrhage 

 is more severe than when it is in a longitudinal wound. There is more 

 bleeding in cleanly cut wounds than there is in those produced by lacera- 

 tion or concussion, but the latter present more complications than the 

 former, due to consecutive hemorrhages. In venous bleeding dark-red, 

 evenly colored blood flows out of the wound. Hemorrhages in small and 

 medium-sized veins generally stop without any surgical interference, 

 but the large veins, especially those in the neighborhood of the heart, 

 are dangerous and should ])e taken up cjuickly. Capillary bleeding 



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