6l6 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO \6Q3-4. 



well in a few days after. The like experiment was also made on another 

 dog, which in like manner recovered, without the application of any me- 

 dicine. 



The leg of a dog was amputated 3 inches above the patella: the expence of 

 blood from the arteries was great, which partly proceeded from the unaptness 

 of the applications ; but after two or three attempts, the flux of blood was 

 stopped, and such a bandage made use of as was necessary only to keep on the 

 dressings: the dog continued without any considerable flux of blood, and the 

 next day he was found on his three legs. This experiment raised expectations 

 of the like success on human bodies : therefore it was tried on a man in St. 

 Bartholomew's Hospital, whose diseased arm was amputated above the elbow ; 

 but for above a quarter of an hour's time, many successless applications of this 

 styptic were made, and at length a small tent dipped in the powder itself, was 

 inserted into the extremity of the bleeding artery, before the flux of blood 

 would admit the application of bandage. Five hours after, a fresh flux of 

 blood appeared, and a strict bandage was applied. The same morning a boy 

 about 12 or 14 years of age, had his leg taken off below the knee, and to the 

 stump divers successless applications of this styptic were also made, before it 

 was bound up, and in less than an hour after, a fresh flux of blood happened, 

 and a strict bandage was added. Some hours after these operations, both these 

 patients suffered intolerable pains : three days after, the applications were taken 

 off, and had any person, a stranger to what had been done, seen the stumps, 

 he would have supposed nothing less than an actual cautery had been applied, 

 or could have occasioned such large eschars, and so horrid an appearance ; 

 which sufiiciently proved that this vulnerary powder is a voilent caustic. 



Trials of styptics on the bodies of quadrupeds have been commonly practised, 

 to recommend them to the public ; but it is not without cause that pretenders 

 to such remedies have made choice of younger animals, as dogs and calves, 

 &c. for that purpose. But since the only standard of their use is their suc- 

 cess on the human body, we ought to make our experiments on those animals 

 whose size and age bear a proportion to it : for nothing is more obvious in 

 wounding the arteries of living animals, than that the protrusion of their blood 

 bears a proportion to their bulk: and in dissection, the arteries of the foetus 

 are remarkably thinner than those of an adult : but those of aged bodies 

 grow still thicker, and frequently become cartilaginous, and at length en- 

 tirely bony. 



