IN A STATE OF TORPOR. 



129 



offered^ on the topic now engaging our atten- 

 tion/^ 



" Observations on the treatment cf parts 

 which are frozen, — Whatever doubts may have 

 been suggested concerning the propriety of keep- 

 ing patients out of a warm temperature^ who 

 are in a state of torpor and insensibility from 

 cold^ none exist with respect to the prudence of 

 extending this principle to the treatment of very 

 cold, or actually frozen parts of the human body. 



If a limb, that is not indeed frozen, but ex- 

 cessively cold, be suddenly warmed, chilblains, 

 frost-bite, and other more extensive forms of in- 

 flammation are the result. The part swells, 

 turns livid, and becomes affected with insup- 

 portable darting pain. And when a part ac- 

 tually frozen is thus quickly warmed, the same 

 symptoms arise, but in an aggravated degree, 

 and rapidly end in mortification. 



In this chapter, I have already cited some 

 facts, strongly illustrative of the danger of ex- 

 posing very cold or frozen parts to the fire ; but 



K 



