162 



OPEEATIONS ON THE SKIN AND CELLULAR TISSUE. 



it will be everyway advantageous to have the patient thrown down 

 and secured, in order that the region to be fired may be exposed 

 as freely as possible — a poiut which has already been considered. 



The parts upon which the firing is to be made must be thor- 

 oughly cleaned and especially "free from scabs or greasy sub- 

 stances. The hair is to be chpped short whenever its length and 

 thickness are Kkely to iuterf ere vdth the action of the instrument ; 

 yet the skin must not be shaved, inasmuch as a thin coat of hair 

 will always prove rather an assistance than otherwise, in dravraig 

 the first lines, by preventing the iastrument from sUpping. 



There was a period when animals were fired with a view to 

 their alleged ornamentation, vrithout any pretext of necessity aris- 

 ing from disease, but simply in conformity to the behest of fash- 

 ion (and possibly as a means of the identification of property), but 

 this artistic firing for fashion's sake is now altogether discarded, 

 and the burned-in shapes of fern leaves, stars, crosses, harps, etc., 



^ _ __ _ _ 

 _ _ 



Fig. 202.— Old-Iasliioned Drawings. 



etc., have made room for firings inflicted for better reasons and 

 with more beneficient and valuable results. 



And while the results of these aesthetic and artistic firings 

 made for purposes of embellishment were usually ugly, un- 

 sightly cicatrices, thickened and hairless, the operations of the 

 present time leave as their sequelae but shght and superficial 

 marks, which are hardly entitled to rank as blemishes, though in 

 this connection must not be included the Prange firing (Fig. 203), 

 which, with its peculiarity, is applied as the ordiuary line firing, 

 except that the lines are divided in small sections. 



Firing in Hnes must be appHed not only upon the diseased 

 part, but must extend somewhat beyond it, and the Unes must be 

 made as nearly as possible parallel with the direction of the hair. 



