160 Miscellanies, 



plication, that although the hands, and especially the face, were pro- 

 digiously swelled, the eyelids tumefied and the nostrils obstructed, 

 the wounds healed so perfectly, that not a trace was left of the ac- 

 cident. 



So much for burns. A family of five persons were attacked with 

 typhus, which reduced them to great extremity. They recovered, 

 but one of them, a lad of twelve years of age, became a prey to 

 enormous eschars, on all the parts of his body, which were obliged 

 to sustain any pressure, or even a permanent contact ; that on the 

 sacrum was at least six inches in diameter, those of the trochanters 

 were the one five and the other four inches, and on each knee was 

 one of two inches, with smaller ones on the feet. The young man 

 was reduced to the lowest degree of emaciation, and so great was 

 the pain that his cries were almost incessant day and night for nearly 

 a month. After trying in vain the ordinary means, Dr. P. thought of 

 carded cotton, and of this he applied a thick compress on each wound. 

 On the first night after, the patient slept, the pains abated as if by 

 enchantment, the application was continued, and in the month of 

 February, the eschars, which had commenced in September prece- 

 ding, were reduced to very small simple wounds, and the patient had 

 regained his strength, notwithstanding the enormous suppuration. 



The precaution which was observed in this important case, and 

 which Dr. P. considers indispensable to success, was never to change 

 the compress of cotton, except when the amount of suppuration in- 

 commoded the patient and almost entirely detached the mass. In 

 dressing also, great care must be taken to cut with good scissors, and 

 never to pull out the fibres of cotton which adhere to the borders of 

 the wound. 



Such unexpected success induced the belief that every kind of 

 wound or ulcer might be treated with decided advantage by dry 

 carded cotton. An opportunity of trying it was soon presented. 

 An unfortunate being, with an enormous cancer of the face, was 

 dressed with cotton, without experiencing from it the least pain. 

 The disease being in its nature incurable, Dr. P. did not pretend to 

 heal it by this means, but he rendered the treatment of It far more . 

 supportable. 



All kinds of wounds, simple and complicated, have been thus 

 kindly and promptly healed. A wound of the head, complicated 

 with much hemorrhage. Was by the same means successfully treated. 

 A prejudice exists that cotton is dangerous to the eyes, but Dr. P. 



