OCR Text |
Show Wounds of the Skin Wounds of the skin and tissues may be of three kinds, first, tears (lacerations) (lacera-tions) made by a fairly blunt instrument instru-ment as a stone; cuts (incised wounds) made by a sharp instrument as a knife or piece of glass; and third, puncture wounds made by some article of relatively small diameter as a splinter or a bullet. The dangers of wounds of the skin are infection or inflammation, bleeding bleed-ing (hemorrhage) from some wounded wound-ed blood vessel, destruction or cutting of some nerve, the cutting of some muscle or bone, and the wounding of some internal or vital organ. Death may result from an Increase of the infection to a general blood poisoning (septicemia), or from bleeding bleed-ing (hemorrhage), or from injury of some vital organ as the brain. Deformities De-formities and ugly scars sometimes follow the healing of such wounds. Wounds quite frequently accompany sprains, and fractures and dislocations. disloca-tions. Preventive Measures. In order to prevent wounds we should be very careful while handling sharp tools. Never allow children to play or run with open knives, sharp sticks or broken glass. Never point a : gun or allow anyone else to point one ! at anybody, no matter whether it is j .loaded or not, because too frequently! it is the guns that "are not loaded" ! that go off and injure people. Treatment. In treating wounds it is a good plan to allow them to bleed freely for a short time, it they will, as some of the germs (bacteria) which are almost always al-ways carried into the wound by the instrument that makes it, may be washed out in this way. If this bleeding bleed-ing is very excessive or long continued contin-ued it should be stopped. Methods of stopping bleeding will be gh'en In a later paper. After the bleeding has stopped the outside of the wound should be washed, and if it is not deep, the whole wound should be cleaned by washing it thoroughly with hot water that had been boiled for a short time and cooled. Some mild antiseptic or disinfectant may be added add-ed to the water, as bichloride of mercury mer-cury (corrosive sublimate), so that the solution is of about the strength of one part of the bichloride to 2,000 parts of water (1-2000); enough boric acid (boracic acidl to make a saturated sat-urated solution about 1 part to 5 or 10 parts of water (1-5 or 1-10); or carbolic acid (phenol) so that there is 1 part of carbolic to 50 parts of water (1-50). A person before attempting at-tempting to clean out a wound should first wash his own hands thoroughly in boiled water and soap for at least three minutes continuously so as to get off all the germs. Do not use dirty rags or cotton waste to wash out wounds because you are liable to wash in more germs than you wash out Always use clean cloths that have been washed and ironed or heated in a hot oven for five or ten minutes, or they may be boiled at the same time that the water is heated. After the wound has been cleaned out, or if deep its outer surface washed, wash-ed, apply a dressing of some soft clean material prepared in the same way as for washing out the wound and it may be put on either dry or moistened in the antiseptic solution used. When possible it is better to apply some sterile gauze dressing similar to that kept at most drug stores. The dressing is kept in place of a snug bandage. j In case of a splinter or other foreign body in the skin, remove all of it be-! be-! lore applying dressings if possible. If not able to remove all of it, apply : dressing and have the patient see a I physician. In cases of a bullet wound j never probe around in the wound to i try to find the bullet, but be satisfied : with cleaning off the outside of the ! wound and applying a clean dressing. Then have the patient see a surgeon at once. Never put tobacco juice or Hour or spider webs or anything similar simi-lar on a wound of any kind. |