cl XX 
APPENDIX. 
which followed when these cases were not immediately attended to, we 
adopted the practice found most useful in cold countries, that of immediately 
emerging the injured parts in snow, or water kept, by the continual addition 
of snow, at 32° of Fahrenheit. They were directed to continue this appli- 
cation until some time after the pliability of the part had been restored. 
In most of these cases, this plan of treatment did not secure the patient 
against an accession of inflammation, which although in general superficial, 
usually terminated in vesication of the whole surface, followed by an exfolia- 
tion of the nail and epidermis. After this, the milder cases quickly healed, 
while in the more severe ones, corrosive ulcerations into the cutis formed, 
which proved troublesome and tedious in the cure. 
A case occurred on board the Hecla which, as it mav serve to illustrate the 
•r 
effects of severe cold, I shall particularize. 
A house, erected on shore for scientific purposes, caught fire by accident 
during the winter. A servant of Captain Sabine, in his endeavours to 
extinguish it, exposed his hands in the first instance to the operation of con- 
siderable heat ; he afterwards remained in the open air in much distress of 
mind, at having been in some measure the involuntary cause of the accident, 
and was almost unconscious of the effects of a temperature of 43° to 44° below 
zero of Fahrenheit, upon his naked hands. He was at length noticed in this 
situation, and sent on board. 
His hands presented a strange appearance ; they were perfectly hard, 
inflexible, colourless, possessing a degree of translucency, exhibiting more the 
external character of pieces of sculptured marble, than those of animated 
matter. They were immediately plunged into the cold bath, where they 
continued for upwards of two hours ere their flexibility was completely 
recovered ; the abstraction of heat had been so great, that the water in 
contact with the fingers congealed upon them, even half an hour after they 
had been immersed. During the cold application, a considerable degree of 
re-action took place, attended by acute pain, from which the patient became 
so faint and exhausted as to necessitate his being conveyed to bed. In less 
