1873.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
185 
TME MOUSETOILE 
W~ (For other Household Items , see “ Basket" pages.) 
A Boiled Knife 
Every experienced^ housekeeper knows that to 
keep the handles of knives out of hot water is one 
of tlie first lessons taught to the girls when wash¬ 
ing dishes. Yet, from carelessness of servants or 
others, the handles do often get into hot water, 
and consequently the blades soon loosen and part 
company with the handle. Recently, a manufac- 
A NEW KNIFE-HANDLE. 
turer left a knife at this office, requesting that it be 
boiled as often as desired, asserting that the handle 
would remain firm under the treatment. The knife 
has stood the test. Hot water does not loosen it. 
Why it does not can be seen by the engraving, 
showing the interior of the handle and how the 
parts are so inseparably joined. The shank or 
“tang” of the blade when finished is put loose¬ 
ly into an opening made to receive it in the 
wooden handle. The two parts are then con¬ 
fined in a proper mold, and the opening is filled by 
running in a melted alloy of tin and antimony. 
This surrounds notches made in the shank, passes 
through openings in the handle and forms rivets, 
and also forms a jaw or clamp at the top of the 
shank which embraces the lower part of the blade, 
and also laps over and firmly holds the upper end 
of the handle. There is no way of separating the 
parts short of breaking the handle. Many different 
styles of these knives are made, to suit different 
tastes. They appear to be the “ knife for the 
million.” 
What to Do with Bleeding Wounds. 
BY DR. J. T. ROTUROCK. 
Any one may be called upon to stop the flow of 
blood in an injured person, and it is well that every 
one should know how to do it. 
The blood as it flows from a cut surface is of 
two colors, and comes from two different sources. 
First, that from the veins is dark, in color not un¬ 
like some of the darker cherries, and comes in one 
continuous stream; that from the arteries is bright¬ 
er red, and leaps out in jets and spirts, each pulsa¬ 
tion of the heart producing one of these jets of 
blood. The stream from an artery may be large 
enough to drain the blood out of the body in fifteen 
minutes, and may shoot out several feet from the 
body of a vigorous man, or it may be so small as 
to be unable to break out into a distinct jet, and 
only bubble forth with each beat of the heart. 
Between these two degrees there may be every 
variation in quantity. Of course, the more pro¬ 
fuse the bleeding, the more alarming it is. 
All that an unskilled person can be expected to 
do in arresting bleeding,is by well-managed com¬ 
pression. Leave twisting of the arteries, or tying 
them, or closing their cavity by a pin to the sur¬ 
geon. Most of these operations require the pre¬ 
liminary use of the knife. I may say, however, 
that when the end of a bleeding vessel can be seen 
and grasped by a pair of small pincers , the doctors 
still do just what good old Ambrose Pare did 
when he “was inspired by God with a good 
thought”—he took “a silk thread and tied 
it tightly around the bleeding vessel.” And so 
ever after the horrible burning with hot irons and 
with boiling oil, the stuffing of the wound with 
drugs to stanch the flow of blood could be dis¬ 
pensed with. 
Wounds made with a sharp-edged instrument 
bleed most freely; those bruised and torn less so. 
Sometimes the mere position of a limb may stop 
even arterial bleeding, providing it is not from a 
large artery. For instance, an injury at the wrist 
possibly may give no alarming How of blood while 
the arm is elevated, or one of the ankle if the leg 
is raised high as possible—so that the blood iu the 
arteries must run up-hill. Application of cold to 
the injury—ice or snow—may remove the cause of 
fear if the accident is not of serious character. 
So, too, bleeding long continued may stop of itself, 
providing the exhaustion so induced render the 
heart unable to force blood through the vessels and 
out at their open ends. 
In adapting pressure to the stoppage of any 
given current of blood, we always endeavor to find 
bone to press against; affordiug thus a solid basis, 
it makes the pressure the more efficient, and does 
it with less pain to the other portions included in 
our constricting bandage. 
We will begin with the head. There are a num¬ 
ber of points at which an artery may be cut which 
will cause alarming (to the bystanders) though 
usually not dangerous bleeding. Just before the 
ear is one such spot; just behind it is another. It 
so happens that we have in either of these places 
the solid bone underneath, and pressure here is 
generally effectual. [To illustrate the subject and 
show where to make compression, we borrow a 
figure, showing the arrangement of the muscles, 
from J. Dorman Steele’s “Fourteen Weeks 
in Human Physiology,” a clever work recently 
published by A. S. Barnes & Co.— Ed.] Suppbse, 
as in the figure, at a spot there covered by the 
bandage, in front of the ear, we find a cut need¬ 
ing our care. Take a bandage six yards long 
and two inches wide. Roll it from each end, 
as represented in figure 3 , so that on either side of 
the center there shall be an equal length rolled up. 
This is what surgeons call a “ double-headed band¬ 
age.” Put the center under the chin and, suppos¬ 
ing the injury to be on the left side, bring one head 
of the bandage 1131 to the cut on that side from the 
chin; carry the other head from the chin up over the 
cheek on the right side, across the top of the head, 
down the left side to the cut; then pass the lower 
end under the upper, carry the former backward 
around the head, and take the upper end forward, 
and so around the head to meet and pass the first 
end. This, as you will see from the figure, makes 
a sort of knot immediately over the cut. Put a 
thick pad of muslin tightly folded under this knot, 
and as you draw upon the ends of the bandage it 
will press the artery down solidly against the bone. 
Continue the turns of the bandage in the horizontal 
direction until they again meet over the cut, change 
the direction again so as to have the bandage run 
around the head vertically, and immediately over 
the first turn you took. And so continue until 
you have made a sufficient number of knots to 
exert firm pressure. Draw the bandage tightly at 
each turn, and when all is on sew or pin the ends. 
You have now a “ knotted bandage.” This general 
form of bandage will 
act well at almost any 
point on the head, and 
with a little effort at 
learning any one can 
Fig. 2 . bandage. master its apparent 
difficulties iu a few minutes. 
Suppose we have a vein bleeding from that most 
alarming of positions— i. e., the side of the neck. 
The blood flows in one continuous stream. Pres¬ 
sure here may even stop this one, and, as in all in¬ 
jured veins, it should be exerted either immediately 
over the injury or on Hie farther side of it—that is, 
on the side most remote from the heart. Surgeons 
sometimes even in these days do open the jugular 
vein, and after allowing what blood they wish to 
escape, close the opening and prevent further loss 
of blood by pressure. In the jugular vein, -how¬ 
ever, we must bear in mind one thing more. In it 
exists the special danger of air being carried from 
the end of the opening nearest the heart into the 
cavities of the heart. The size of the vessel and 
its nearness to that central organ readily account 
for the unusual danger here. Hence, then, whilst 
we are exerting pressure with our fingers, or fin¬ 
gers and a compress of muslin, over the injury, 
and at its further edge, pressure should also be ap¬ 
plied on the other side to preveflt admission of air, 
or we may hear a peculiar, never-to-be-forgotten 
gurgle, and find a little later that our patient has 
gone. Even if the blood come from an artery in 
the neck the effect of compression in the same way 
might be tried; but usually nothing short of an 
operation, and often a most serious one, by the 
surgeon can be of any avail. Indeed, life may ebb 
out with the flowing blood before medical help 
reaches the spot. 
(to be continued.) 
--» -- ——»-». - — 
Bag-Bags. 
“Are you housekeeper enough to keep a rag¬ 
bag?” asked one of the “lights of literature” 
(whom the poet Whittier com¬ 
pliments as a “ capital lioues- 
lceeper ” herself), as she gath¬ 
ered some scraps she had been 
scattering upon my carpet. 
“I certainly should not be 
much of a housekeeper with¬ 
out a rag-bag,” I answered, 
as I took her pieces and 
carried them to the calico 
bag mother gave me when I 
began housekeeping. 
Not keep a rag-bag 1 Why, 
then, what becomes of all the 
little scraps and garments 
worn out past all repairing ? 
One woman buys all her sew¬ 
ing materials—needles, thread, silk, tape, etc.—with 
the savings of her rag-bag. Many of us trade off 
our rags to peddlers of tin-ware, and so keep good 
our stock of pans, dippers, and basins. 
Sometimes it seems best to have several of these 
bags; one for white rags, one for colored-cotton 
and linen rags, and another for woolen scraps. It 
is well to have also a large bag (a paper flour-bag 
if you please) in a convenient place to receive torn 
and crumpled papers. In some parts of the coun¬ 
try it does not pay to keep white and colored rags 
separate, as one gets no more for the white rags 
than for mixed. In other places, white rags com¬ 
mand a much better price than mixed ones. 
Persons who make rag-carpets would do well to 
put every rag picked up which would work into a 
carpet into some receptacle devoted to miscella¬ 
neous carpet-rags. These would help toward a 
carpet faster than one might suppose, and if they 
were stripped up at the time of putting away, a 
carpet would soon be “well begun;” and “well 
begun is half done.” 
The rag-bag should hang in some near and con¬ 
venient place. Mother’s always hung in the kit¬ 
chen stairway, and I have followed her example. 
A closet opening from the sitting-room or kitchen 
is a suitable place for the rag-bag. When this bag 
is full it is heavy, and should be hung from two 
nails. A doubled piece of cloth five or six inches 
long sewed upon one side of the top of the bag, 
with two button-holes (see diagram) for hanging it 
upon two separate nails, gives a firm bag that will 
not be likely to tear away from the nail. When 
you get a good calico rag-bag of this description 
you will not be likely to throw it in with the rags 
when you sell them. Many women use only old 
bags which they do not care to keep back when 
