When the incisions are made, if the neighbouring parts appear somewhat
tainted, we must, by gentle compression, squeeze out the corrupted
humour which may harbour there, and wipe it off with a bit of soft
linnen rag. Afterwards, whether it may have been necessary to extract,
either with the fingers, a scalpel, or with the instrument called a
myrtle leaf[8], any bony splinters too much detached from the substance
of the bone itself to hope for a re-union, a circumstance which often
requires a considerable dilatation of the fleshy parts; or whether
the bones appear carious, or spoiled in any other shape; or, lastly,
whether we may have been obliged to make deep incisions, even to
the bone: In all these cases, we must at first employ such external
applications as are proper for the bones, and for the soft parts that
have a tendency to mortification, although they may have discharged a
sufficient quantity of blood during these operations.
The bone, whether the periosteum be sound or destroyed, must be dressed
with the following medicine: _Of frankincense, mastick, sarcocolla and
myrrh finely pounded, true balsam of Peru, and genuine essential oil
of cloves, of each equal parts; of balsam of Fioraventi, as much as
may, in mixing all the ingredients over a very gentle fire, form a thin
liniment_; which must be warmed when used, and which must be poured
plentifully into the wounds I am speaking of, so that the bone may be
well moistened therewith.
This medicine is of service in all cases where the bone is affected.
When the bone is covered with it, some dry lint may be laid over it,
and the soft parts dressed by sprinkling upon this lint a powder
composed of _an ounce of myrrh finely pounded, half an ounce of sal
ammoniac, camphor and nitre, each a dram_. After the first layer of
lint is thus covered, fresh lint must be applied, and again sprinkled
with the powder, till in this manner the cavity of the wound is quite
filled up with alternate layers of lint, and this vulnerary powder.