CHAPTER XII. 

 TRAUMATISMS. 



The word "traumatism" is applied to local affections 

 produced in an abrupt manner by physical, chemical or me- 

 chanical agents. 



ETIOLOGY. — The physical agents, heat and cold, cause 

 special lesions, designated as "bums" and "chills," and more 

 rarely the chemical agents, acids, and caustics, which pro- 

 duce injuries to the integument. It is the mechanical agent 

 that occasions the greatest number of traumatisms. The use 

 of domestic animals as motors exposes them to various me- 

 chanical injuries. 



The bodies which inflict wounds are sticks, knives, hooks, 

 nails, whips, goads, pitchforks, and now and then the horns 

 of ruminants and the iron shoes of a horse. And the sur- 

 geon himself by his justifiable intervention produces trauma- 

 tisms. The ablation of a tumor, operations with the hand, 

 castration, or cauterization with the actual cautery, consti- 

 tute so many designed and necessary traumata, for the pur- 

 jjose of gaining an economic result or fixed therapeutic ob- 

 ject. 



PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY.— The nature of injur- 

 ies to the tissues is essentially variable. The injured point, — 

 the traumatic center, — is designated as an open or exposed 

 wound when the skin is broken, and a closed or subcutaneous 

 wound when the skin remains intact. When the body that in- 

 flicts the wound penetrates deeply and opens a cavity, the 

 wound is called a cavernous wound. Every wound, from 

 the standpoint of anatomical alteration, generally presents 

 zones that are easily recognized : — The central zone is the 



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