WOUNDS AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



By a wound we mean any injury which lacerates or punctures 

 the skin, no matter what is the depth. Wounds are classified 

 according to various authors in the following manner: 



1. Their location, whether they are in the head, neck, chest, or 

 extremities. 



2. According to their depth into the muscles or bones, they 

 are called penetrating or non-penetrating. Those that injure the 

 skin slightly are called lacerations or excoriations. 



3. They are also termed longitudinal, transverse, or oblique, 

 according to their direction or length. Regular or irregular — that 

 is, indented or flap wounds. 



4. Their cause is also considered, whether produced by cuts, 

 blows, lacerations, concussions, bites, or gunshot. These causes, 

 however, are of no special importance. 



Clinical, Symptoms. All wounds are accompanied by three 

 symptoms: the open, gaping condition of the edges of the wound, 

 hemorrhage, and pain. As a rule, the wider the wound the deeper 

 it is. If the wound is long but does not gape, it corresponds with 

 the direction of the muscle or the tissues beneath it. On the other 

 hand, wounds across muscles are much wider and gape more, this 

 being due to the retraction of the muscles. 



The bleeding is either arterial, venous, or capillary. The former 

 may be recognized by the fact of blood being mixed with more or 

 less light-colored arterial blood. The danger of such arterial bleed- 

 ing depends on the size of ihe arteries and how severely they have 

 been injured. In small arteries the bleeding generally stops of its 

 own accord, due to contraction of the severed bloodvessels; but in 

 large arteries the animal will frequently bleed to death unless 

 surgical interference stops it. In cases where the artery is cut in 

 a transverse wound the hemorrhage is more severe than when it 

 is in a longitudinal wound. There is more bleeding in cleanly cut 

 wounds than there is in those produced by laceration or concussion, 

 but the latter present more complications than the former, due to 

 consecutive hemorrhages. In venous bleeding dark-red, even col- 



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