The Treatment of the 

 Injured Hand * 



How to Cleanse it and How to Examine it 



By Ralph St. J. Perry, M. D., Santa Fe, Isle of Pines, Cuba 



[Editor's Note. — Minor injuries to the hands that are infected d«r- 

 ing their work and become aerious are of BUch common occurrence 

 among vetervnariana that no apology ia required for presenting this 

 excellent article, a chapter from Dr. Perry's book on "The Injured 

 Hand" here even though it deala with no phase of veterinary surgery. 

 The principlea here given apply alike to minor surgery of both man and 

 animals. Dr. L. A. MeriUat. the moat widely read surgeon among 

 veterinariana haa pronounced this article the best "surgery" that has 

 ever appeared in a veterinary publication.^ 



Probably every accidental wound is an infected 

 wound. Out of several hundred of such injuries 

 only two were found to be noninfected when sub- 

 jected to bacteriologic tests. The infection usually 

 is coincident with the injury, and it is doubtful 

 whether any method of wound cleansing has yet 

 been devised which will surely and immediately 

 eliminate this primary infection. 



•Eeprinted from the American Journal of Veterinary Medicine, No- 

 vember, 1910. 



