VOL. Vlir.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 73 



being removed, the wound was found very dry, and the artery yielded not a drop 

 of blood. 



Of another dog, the flank was cut with a pen-knife, which penetrated into the 

 liver. The same knife was run into the groin of another dog, and a vein, nerve, 

 and artery cut together, to imitate the slashing of a sword, and to see the effect 

 of this sanative water in that case. All these wounds were speedily cured, with- 

 out any ill accident to those animals. 



To see what this essence would perform in cases of whole limbs quite cut off^, 

 which sometimes must be done to prevent gangrenes ; a dog was taken and one 

 of his legs altogether cut off, and a compress of lint, wetted with the essence, 

 laid upon the cut veins and arteries. At the end of a quarter of an hour the 

 compress was taken off, and also the bandage, that held it against the stump of 

 the leg cut ; and the blood was found so staunched, as if no vessel had been 

 opened in that part. 



These experiments having so well succeeded on brutes, and been repeated 

 over and over with the like success, no scruple was then made to try the liquor 

 upon men. First, there were opened veins in the arms, as is done in ordinary 

 phlebotomies, and a lint dipped in the liquor having been held on the wound half 

 a quarter of an hour, the veins were found as perfectly closed, as is usual in the 

 common way after 24 hours. Another being bled in the temporal artery, and 

 the like application made, he went abroad, and took a turn in town without any 

 compress, or bandage, the artery never opening again. 



The same essence has also been very successfully used in fluxes of blood, 

 giving it at the mouth in ptisane : and surprising eff'ects of it have been seen 

 in cases of bleeding at the nose : seeing that as soon as a pledget of lint, moist- 

 ened with this liquor, was put into the nostrils, the blood was stopped. 



To show further that extraordinary quality of this essence, Mr. Denis ob- 

 serves, that it heals wounds without any visible cicatrice, and without any sup- 

 puration, saying, that by the same property it has of staunching blood, it not 

 only closes the orifices of vessels opened, but it likewise so constricts the pores 

 of the fibres of the flesh uncovered, that it suffers no air to enter, nor any hu- 

 mour to extravasate out of the wound: and by thus defending a wound against 

 all the alterations that may ensue either from without or from within, it pre« 

 serves from all suppuration, and keeps the flesh entire ; and the wound closing 

 without any loss or reproduction of substance, we need not wonder, he says, 

 that it is done in a short time, and without an apparent cicatrice. 



He affirms to have received news from Calais, that an officer of the ship 

 called le Tonant, having his shoulder broken by a cannon- bullet, was carried 

 into an hospital, where the axillary artery together with his arm being cut off, 



VOL. II. L 



