CHAPTER IX 



THE SYRINGE 



Syeinges of various capacity and make are in use. Prob- 

 ably a 1 c.c. and a 10 c.c. capacity syringe are the two most 

 useful sizes, as they can be used as a vaccine and serum 

 syringe respectively. 



They should have metallic or glass pistons, which are 

 much to be preferred to leather-washer ones. It is not 

 necessary to have a large -bore needle, as the serums and 

 vaccines are very fluid. For emergency an ordinary hypo- 

 dermic syringe will answer one's purpose. 



It is advisable to have the syringe made sterile, although 

 the writer must confess in practice to having made several 

 thousand injections, and in many cases failed to sterilize 

 the instrument, and does not recollect having ever had an 

 abscess at the seat of injection or any other sequelae, but 

 always makes it a point, however, to cleanse the syringe 

 after use by aspirating several capacities of weak lysol 

 solution. 



Where one has to be specially particular, and in practice 

 one really cannot be too particular, the syringe can be con- 

 veniently sterilized with hot oil in the following manner: 

 Take a tablespoonful of salad-oil and place in a soup-ladle 

 (the latter can be fixed upon a stand), float in the oil a crumb 

 of white bread. Heat over a Bunsen burner or spirit lamp 

 until bubbles of steam begin to rise from the crumb. This 

 will indicate a temperature equivalent to boiling water. 

 Now take up a syringeful of oil, and then expel it into the 

 ladle again; continue to apply the heat until the crumb 



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