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CHAPTER XII. 



MEDICAL AND SURGICAL, 



Bandages. Hospital air beds. Hospital water bed. Improved water beds. Hospital sheets. 

 Dissecting gloves. Dissecting aprons. Finger ends, or cots. Crutches. Russian belts. 

 Abdominal supporters. Trusses. Ear trumpets. Varicose stockings. Nipple shields. Breast 

 pump. Nursing bottles. Poulticing socks. Urine bags. Gonorrhea bags. Bed pans. Pes- 

 sary. Syringes. Bellows syringes. Self-acting syringes. Invalids' cushion. Ventilated 

 water-beds. Stethescopes. Hot-water bottles. 



It has been remarked that the medical faculty v^^ere among 

 the first who gave attention to experiments for the purpose of 

 improving gum-elastic, and next to the erasing of pencil marks, 

 it was used for medical and surgical purposes. For some of 

 these purposes, articles rudely manufactured of native gum by 

 the Para Indians, have been highly valued, though they are now 

 mostly superseded by an increased variety of others in this line, 

 made of vulcanized gum-elastic. Some articles spoken of in 

 this chapter, which are of the highest value, are hardly known to 

 the mass of mankind, even in highly civilized life, for various 

 reasons. 



The expensiveness and only occasional use of such apparatus, 

 has been a hinderance to their general introduction. Among 

 this apparatus, the merit of which is not commonly known, are 

 the hot-water bottles, water beds, and hospital sheets. The 

 water beds cannot be too highly recommended for invalids, as 

 they will oftentimes afford rest when no other bed will do it. 

 The bed-spreads and hospital sheets are equally useful in theii 

 place, and probably no means are so convenient and effectual for 

 fomentation as the hot-water bottles. The extensive manufac- 

 ture and general use of this class of articles, would reduce them 

 to a comparatively nominal expense. 



