658 REVIEW.—RENAULT ON TRAUMATIC GANGRENE. 
have far more to do with gangrene that the human surgeon, and 
are compelled to have recourse to more decisive measures: this 
is, consequently, an interesting subject to us. 
The work of M. Renault has been reviewed by M. H. Bouley, 
Assistant Professor at the Veterinary School of Alfort, and that 
review has been so fairly and philosophically executed, that we 
shall do little more than transcribe his valuable observations. We 
read it with much delight, as equally creditable to the Author and 
the Reviewer. 
Of all the physical agents,” says M. Bouley, “ which exercise 
their influence on organized bodies, the atmospheric air is one of 
those whose mode of action ought to be most carefully studied. 
The affinity of this fluid for the organic elements is so powerful 
that it can—a part of the body being deprived of its protecting 
envelope—produce a separation of these elements and cause them 
to enter into new combinations injurious to life or incompatible 
with it. 
“ In order better to comprehend the remarkable influence which 
the air exercises on a living part exposed to its agency, and the 
importance of the study of this agent—if it were only with reference 
to surgical practice—I will relate, in a few words, the phenomena 
which take place in a wound from the moment of its infliction. 
“When a solution of continuity is effected in a tissue, the blood 
flows from the wounded vessels in a large stream or small jet, ac¬ 
cording to the diameter of these vessels. After a while it gradually 
ceases to escape, either spontaneously or in consequence of the 
means to which we have had recourse in order to arrest the effu¬ 
sion. The part which is wounded becomes painful. It is not 
organized to support the contact of these exterior agents with im¬ 
punity. This pain is almost always accompanied by an increase 
of temperature in the injured part. At the end of a few hours 
the lips of the wound begin to swell, and from the surface of 
the wound, and between the lips of it, a limpid transparent liquid 
is secreted, which we call coagidahle, or plastic lymph. This is 
the product of a nutritive secretion, which is rendered more active 
where it is to effect a reparation of the injured parts, and it pos¬ 
sesses the germ of life; but in order that this germ may develope 
itself, it is necessary that the plastic fluid should be submitted to a 
higher temperature than usual, and to resist or be withdrawn from 
the affinities in the atmospheric air. Thus the first thing, in order 
to obtain the cicatrization of a wound by the first intention, is that 
the lips of the solution of continuity should be brought into per¬ 
fect contact with each other, and that, by means of bandages im¬ 
permeable to the atmosphere, the tissues may be withdrawn from 
its influence. 
