300 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1752- 



There had been lately made, at the Hospital of the invalids, 1 experiments of 

 this astringent in amputations ; and in both the success has been equal to all that 

 can be desired. The surgeon, in these cases, used only the 1 pieces, applied 

 one over the other, without using the powder in the bag, as before ; and dressed 

 the whole wound with lint and the common bandage. 



- Thus then at last there appears to be discovered a remedy beyond our hopes, 

 and which art has never yet equalled. The application of fire was the cruel re- 

 source of the ancients ; and Pare believed himself inspired when he discovered 

 the use of the ligature. But, alas ! how many accidents are there, which arise 

 from the use of those 2 manners, and which too often terminate in the death of 

 the patient ! Happy for us, that those accidents now appear to be no longer to 

 be feared, by the lucky discovery of this styptic, the first experiments of which 

 have so greatly promised success 1 



It may be remarked, that, if this astringent succeeded only in coagulating the 

 blood, it had produced nothing extraordinary ; for these coagulations would not 

 have been sufficient to have stopped the haemorrhage, directly after the opera- 

 tion in amputations : but its excellency lies in contracting the arteries so closely, 

 that it hardly lets a little probe into the aperture of the artery, and by this means 

 forms, as it were, a perfect ligature, much more certain than the usual one ; as 

 this is not made in any one point of the cylinder of a vessel. Thus this appli- 

 cation exceeds every thing which has hitherto been produced by the operation 

 of our hands.* 



• This singularity in the operation of this remedy supposes another in the 

 vessels, which is the great contractility of the fibres of the arteries. These 

 indeed do naturally contract of themselves ; but not to two-thirds of their dia- 

 meter ; nor to that state in which they are straitened by the effect of this as- 

 tringent ; because, by that the whole aperture is almost entirely taken off in the 

 largest vessels ; and it is easy to imagine their effects in the smallest. 



It may be observed, that it is not in the dead parts of bodies, that this con- 

 traction can be made : it requires the assistance of the vital principle, and operates 

 on the fibres by certain articles contained in it, which dispose the animal body, 

 by its irritation, to shorten its fibres, and reduce the tissue, which they compose, 

 into a less volume. 



This remedy is nothing else but the agaric of the oak. The best kind of it is 

 found on the parts of oak trees, where the large limbs have been cut off; and it 

 very often resembles a horse-shoe in its shape. This agaric is distinguished into 

 4 parts: the rind; the 2d part, which is preferable to the other; the 3d part 



* In a subsequent number of these Trans, we shall take occasion to remark that notwithstanding 

 all that has been advanced in favour of this and other styptics, the best method of stopping a haemor- 

 rhage when a large artery is divided, is to have recourse to a ligature. 



