WOUNDS. 425 
fore, do not generally retract any more than do the soft structures. A 
gash into a fleshy substance always produces a gaping wound, which is 
wide in proportion to the depth and length of 
the injury. From that hurt the dark-colored 
venous blood drains in a stream, while the bright 
scarlet or arterial blood is propelled forth in 
jets, sometimes to a considerable distance. 
These jets correspond with the pulsations of the 
heart; but as syncope or fainting takes place, 
the emission ceases with the beating of the cir- 
culatory center. 
The danger consequent upon an incised  j,eram or ay ivcisep wouxp. 
wound is ever measured by the extent of the 
hemorrhage. When large arteries are divided, that fact is easily told 
by the size and the force of the jets sent forth. A strong horse may, 
from that cause, be dead in ten minutes. To enforce the difference 
between a lacerated and an incised wound, the reader is reminded of 
those painful cases, frequently recorded in the newspapers, where a 
limb is by machinery torn from a poor man’s 
body, and scarcely a drop of blood marks the 
deprivation; also of death by severing a throat, 
when sensation ceases ere the stream has flowed 
forth. The last is an incised, the first is a 
lacerated wound. 
An abraded wound, in its mildest form, is 
simply a graze. The reader will, however, 
remember how acutely painful such accidents 
always are. The horse’s sufferings are not 
highly estimated by the generality of people; 
nevertheless, an injury of this description is 
not to be despised, even when witnessed on 
the animal. A broken knee, as it generally is 
exhibited, is nothing more than an abrasion. 
An abraded wound may simply mean that the 
insensible outer covering of the skin has been injured; it may also 
imply that the soft structures beneath have been sundered. Wounds 
of this kind are not free from danger when of magnitude. Little blood 
may flow, but the cutis is the most sensitive structure of the entire 
body. A needle’s point cannot enter any part of the skin without sen- 
sation warning the person of a puncture. In human operations, divi- 
sion of the skin, or separation of the cutis, is known to constitute the 
major portion of the patient’s agony. 
DIAGRAM OF AN ABRADED WOUND. 
