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[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. XX.—NO. 1004.] MARCH 25, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
A POINT OF CONSCIENCE.
[Illustration: “THE DAINTY PORTFOLIO.”]
_All rights reserved._]
Miss Colbourne was expecting a visitor to tea. Not to the ordinary
lodging-house meal which was prepared for herself every evening, but to
a special four o’clock tea, every detail of which was arranged by her
own hands. The little copper kettle was purring on the old-fashioned
hob, the unsteady round table was covered with a dainty white cloth,
and weighted with the silver salver and porcelain cups without handles
that had belonged to her grandmother. Hot cakes were keeping warm in
front of the fire, and there was a special little jug of cream.
The room itself was of a very common type. Carpets and curtains were in
clashing shades of crimson, while a green table-cloth disagreed with
both. There was the usual profusion of china ornaments with various
photographs of the landlady’s friends. Miss Colbourne had inhabited
the room for years past. She objected to the ornaments, but respect
for her landlady’s feelings enabled her to keep silence and to endure
them. Nothing else troubled her. Her own possessions were disposed
inartistically enough; books encumbered the sideboard, more lay in
piles on the floor. She had few pretty things, and had not the knack of
so arranging her surroundings as to make a nest for herself. Her room
reminded the onlooker of a temporary halting place—never of a home.
She had only just finished her preparations, and was in the act of
rolling up an easy-chair close to the fire, when a slight tap at the
door was followed by the entrance of the expected visitor.
Jessie Blaher was a slim rosy-cheeked girl of sixteen, who had been one
of Miss Colbourne’s favourite pupils from the time she was a tiny trot
of seven. Lessons had only been given up when Mr. Blaher removed his
family into the country.
Jessie had not seen her old teacher for more than twelve months. Over
tea and cake they talked of the past and present, of books and men.
Then Jessie helped to wash up and put away the cherished relics. Miss
Colbourne was bringing out some photographs, when she exclaimed—
“Oh, I want so much to see the views of Florence that Lena sent you!”
“Do you mean the illustrations of _Romola_?”
“Yes, please!”
Miss Colbourne walked across to the corner of the room that held her
especial treasures. There stood a bookshelf brought from Bellagio by a
friend, carved out of the olive wood with inlaid work. On the bottom
shelf were arranged her Italian books, one or two rare editions among
them. Above was a fine likeness of Dante and a plaster medallion of
Savonarola, with some trifling objects picked up by friends on their
wanderings. One of the most precious of these treasures was the dainty
portfolio which she now brought forward and laid on the table.
Jessie took it up eagerly.
“Lena amused herself last winter,” said Miss Colbourne, “with
collecting all the views she could find to illustrate _Romola_. She
knows it is my favourite story.”
“And did she make the case too?”
“Yes, out of a piece of Italian silk. These are the Florentine lilies
she has embroidered on the front.”
Miss Colbourne untied the ribbons—green, white, and blue—carefully, and
showed the contents—the Via de Bardi, Santa Croce, the Convent of San
Marco, and many another.
“Lena could not get pictures of all the places,” she said, “so she took
several sketches herself. These in the side-pocket don’t belong exactly
to _Romola_—they are photographs of some of the great pictures in the
Galleries.”
“How well you explain it!” said Jessie admiringly as she put the case
carefully back. “Just as if you had been there! But you haven’t been to
Italy, have you?”
“No,” said Miss Colbourne, “but I hope to go soon,” and her face glowed
with suppressed fervour. “It has been the dream of my life to see Italy
ever since I was a little girl. It seemed impossible then, but now I
think it may be managed next year.”
After Jessie had gone, Miss Colbourne settled down to her books. It was
after eight when Mrs. Coombes, the churchwarden’s wife, bustled in. She
was a stout, pleasant little woman who knew everyone’s business.
“Good evening, Miss Colbourne. Why, bless me, you have let your fire
out! Aren’t you cold?”
“I have been busy and forgot it,” said Miss Colbourne apologetically,
rising to meet her, “and it is rather early for fires, don’t you
think?”
“Oh, I don’t know! It looks pretty dismal without one on a wet evening.
I have just run in to pay for Gertie’s lessons. Mr. Coombes wrote you
out a cheque two or three days ago, but I’ve been too busy to get round
with it.”
While Miss Colbourne was receipting the account, Mrs. Coombes went on—
“I suppose you have heard about Mrs. Bateson? I can’t say that I was
surprised.”
“No,” said Miss Colbourne, turning round, her pen suspended in her
hand. “What is it? Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“It seems when she went home in August her mother wasn’t satisfied with
her looks and made her see a physician. He said she is consumptive—one
lung affected—and that she ought to winter abroad.”
“Dear, dear, I am sorry!”
“Yes, it’s a bad business. I don’t know what they can do! A curate with
four children can’t be expected to have means to send his wife abroad
at a moment’s notice.”
“But can nothing be done?”
“Well, Mr. Coombes has been talking to the Vicar, and they are making a
collection. Fifty pounds will be wanted, and so far they have fifteen
towards it. I’m afraid they will never raise it. It’s a pity, because
the doctor said she was a hopeful case—probably the winter away would
save her life. But I must be going, Miss Colbourne; my husband will be
wondering where I am. You do look cold. Why don’t you have your fire
lit again?”
Her visitor gone, Miss Colbourne did not settle to her work again.
Usually she did not find time for all she wanted to accomplish, but
to-night she tried one thing after another without success. At last,
flinging her books on one side, she fell to pacing up and down the room.
After a while she opened the secret drawer in her desk, and taking out
an old-fashioned long silk purse, she turned out its contents—five
ten-pound notes and a little loose gold. She weighed them in her
hands—the savings of ten years. Often had she sat without a fire and
gone without a hot meal to add to that hoard. It explained why she wore
a threadbare jacket and shabby bonnet. With it she thought to turn the
dream of her youth into reality. Once and again she had been on the
point of visiting Italy, but illness and bereavement had barred the
way. Now she was so near attainment that she had planned to go after
Christmas. She did not lock the money up again, but laid it in a heap
on the open desk and resumed her pacing.
She knew the Batesons well. She respected and admired the curate and
sincerely loved his wife. She knew enough of their circumstances to
be sure that, unless help from outside were forthcoming, the doctor’s
advice could not be followed. She felt equally sure that Mrs. Coombes
was right, and that the necessary sum would not be raised by so poor a
congregation.
Must the invalid then face the rigours of an English winter? There
seemed no other solution to the problem. And yet as she turned in her
deliberate walk, there was the little pile of money glittering in the
lamplight that offered quite another solution.
Miss Colbourne was not given to sentiment; she was a woman who had
faced the world and earned her own living for thirty years, and was
not quickly moved by any sudden impulse of compassion. Neither was she
one to grasp at her own advantage. Had it been merely her own pleasure
she was asked to sacrifice, she would have done it willingly. It was
characteristic that this aspect of the question did not trouble her. In
her heart she knew well that this was her last opportunity of realising
her dreams: never again would she possess the necessary funds; youth
had gone, health and strength were both on the wane. To give up now
meant to give up for life. She realised this, but it did not move her;
it hurt her, but it did not shake her purpose. It was not her own
pleasure that she hesitated to relinquish; it was rather a question
of her duty to herself. Miss Colbourne took life very seriously, and
lived up to a delicately poised standard of right and wrong. She had
a few months before refused an invitation to a performance of the
_Agamemnon_, because she did not consider her knowledge of Greek
equal to its perfect comprehension, and she would not pose as a Greek
scholar. The pleasure the spectacle would have given her was not
allowed to influence her decision. In the same way now she hesitated
whether she ought to give up this opportunity of widening and enriching
her mind, cramped by narrow horizons at home. The months she dreamed of
spending abroad would not only increase her mental stores, but send her
back with enlarged and quickening powers to her pupils. “Where,” she
debated, “does one’s duty to one’s higher nature leave off and that to
one’s neighbour begin? Shall I not be a more useful member of society
if I go abroad, and ought I not to consider my work first?”
In her pacings she picked up one of the views that had dropped from
the portfolio and carried it back to its place. It was a quaint
representation of the bonfire of vanities. She handled her treasures
tenderly, and with her handkerchief wiped an imaginary speck of dust
from Savonarola’s medallion. As she did so she wondered whether the
great ascetic would have thought this dream of hers a “vanity” too.
Very lightly did culture weigh in his mind.
This was a new thought; she was called to another kind of self-denial
than that of food and clothing. Might not the culture of the mind be
dearly bought at the expense of another’s life? Myra Bateson’s life,
too, involved the happiness of the little ones gathered about her
knees. The problem grew complex; contrasted with the well-being of this
family group Miss Colbourne felt the insignificance of her own needs.
“I don’t want to believe it,” she said at last, with a half-smile, “but
after all the Mother is more important than the Teacher.”
While Miss Colbourne was thus debating a nice point of morals, Mrs.
Bateson was wearily pacing up and down her nursery, trying to hush the
baby to sleep. But he was cutting his first tooth, and quite fractious
enough to prefer his mother’s arms to the cot. When he condescended
to be laid down, another child awoke, and it was nine o’clock before
their mother descended the stairs. Her husband’s coat, saturated with
rain, caught her eye in the hall, and she carried it off to the kitchen
to dry. He was not in the sitting-room where the supper table, spread
with cold meat and bread and cheese, awaited him. She did not like to
disturb him, but sat down to an overflowing basket of socks till he
should be ready. Perhaps of all those who knew of her illness she was
the least concerned; she was thinking then, not of her journey, but
whether Tommy ought not to give up skirts this autumn. She wished her
husband would not work so late, she was anxious to consult him about so
many things—he ought to have a new overcoat, and she wanted to make him
promise to order it at once.
But the curate was not at work; the rain that had drenched him in his
long walk back from church to his home in the suburbs seemed to have
affected him mentally. He sat, a limp, huddled-up figure, in his study
armchair; he heard his wife come downstairs, but he was not ready to
meet her gentle eyes and join in easy talk.
Over six feet in height, his face had not lost its boyish look, with
wavy light hair and bright blue eyes. But the lids were downcast now,
and the lips under the scanty moustache were set in a curve of pain.
The Vicar had not been to church, but Coombes had told him of the
scanty response to their appeal. His pride revolted at their dependence
on charity, while his heart was wrung with pity for his suffering wife.
He had entered the ministry with a single desire for God’s service, and
for a time all had gone well with him. But now the iron had entered
into his soul, and he was tempted to curse God and die.
His schoolfellows were prospering in the world; he, with gifts no whit
behind them, was forced to see his wife fade by his side for lack of
the sordid pence that had fallen so plentifully to their share. In his
agony he dared God to a trial of strength; he challenged Him by the
promises of old to show Himself a God of might, and to deliver His
servants in their hour of need.
A gentle tapping on the wall roused him at last; he strove for
composure and in a few moments joined his wife in the sitting-room.
“How late you are, Arthur,” she said anxiously, “and you look so tired.
I do wish you would not study so late. A letter came for you an hour
ago, but I did not like to disturb you,” and she held out a sealed
envelope.
He weighed it in his hand for a moment before opening it. Within were
five ten-pound notes, and a scrap of paper bearing the lines—
“Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome,
Ringing with echoes of Italian song;
Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong,
And all the pleasant place is like a home.”
“Not very appropriate, are they?” commented the curate smiling.
“Darning is more in your line than Italian poetry.”
He could not know that Miss Colbourne had with the money transferred
all her own hopes and aspirations to the invalid.
CECIL VINCENT.
OUR MEDICINE CHEST.
BY “THE NEW DOCTOR.”
PART I.
THE SURGICAL DRAWER.
A fair critic asked us the other day why all our articles were written
for Londoners—why we had never addressed our remarks to girls living in
out-of-the-way districts at home or in the colonies?
Truly we do not know what difference it makes if these papers are
written in London or for Londoners. Health and sickness are much the
same all over the world, and the chief difference between England and
the Gold Coast as regards disease is the prevalence in the latter of
maladies which are peculiar to the land. And the discussion of these
would not afford interest to any save such as are living there.
But we will address this article chiefly to persons living in remote
parts where medical aid is not always easy to obtain.
We were buying some drugs yesterday, and when we had finished our
purchases, the chemist showed us a wonderful “new toy” which had just
been sent to him. It was called “The Patients’ _Vade Mecum_.”
_Vade Mecum_—go with me—evidently something to be carried about with
one—a pocket-case, in fact. Oh, but this was not a pocket-case! It was
a great chest—like a family deed-box. It was bound and studded with
brass nails, and was a very tolerable load for a strong man to carry.
Not at all what we should call a _Vade Mecum_.
Let us describe this chest. Follow it carefully, for we are describing
the exact reverse to what any sensible person would have in her house!
There was a grand brass lock and two keys. Unfortunately, neither
of the keys fitted the lock, so that it was at least half a minute
before we could open the thing. When at length the lock yielded, the
interior of the box presented a sight which we shall never forget.
There was quite a forest of clean little corks. There were in the upper
compartment one hundred and forty-four clean, sweet, little one-ounce
bottles, all neatly labelled and fitted with the pretty little corks
which were the first things that attracted our attention. These bottles
were arranged in rows of twelve abreast, and there was not a stain on
any one of them.
We took hold of one and tried to pull it out from amongst its fellows,
but it wouldn’t come. However, a good hard tug displaced it, and with
it two or three others which rolled to the ground, and we held in our
hand a one-ounce bottle of—of—well, the name of the stuff slips us
altogether—anyhow, it was quite new to us. Underneath the name of the
preparation was written “Cure for Gout.”
This looked interesting, so we examined the other bottles and
discovered that the hundred and forty-four bottles contained a hundred
and forty-four preparations—all guaranteed different—which “cured” a
hundred and forty-four diseases!
But the odd thing about it was, we had never before heard of any of the
drugs, nor did we know half the diseases which these wonderful drugs
cured. There was one bottle to cure “humours” of the face. What on
earth are they?
We cannot rise to this. But there is a drawer underneath. Let us open
it and see what it contains. More bottles! Bigger ones this time. One,
we see, contains tincture of arnica—guaranteed to remove all effects of
“injuries, bruises, and inflammations.” This is coming it too strong!
We know tincture of arnica, and we know that some people have an idea
that it does something or other to relieve bruises—an idea which we
do not share. But to say it removes all effects of injuries, bruises
(we should have thought that these might have been included under the
former term), and inflammations—well, we live and learn.
There were five other bottles in this drawer. And then there was a pair
of scissors. What can they be for? But then we found a roll of sticking
plaster, and the mystery was cleared up at once. This is intended for
the surgical part of the box. Fancy a surgery containing six bottles, a
pair of scissors, and a roll of plaster!
And quite enough too, if one of the bottles contains a balm which will
remove all effects of injuries and inflammations. But then what is the
good of the other five bottles, the pair of scissors and the plaster?
“What do you think of my box?” asked the chemist when we had finished
our exploration. “How much do you think that cost?”
“Dear me, man, you don’t mean to say you bought that?”
“No,” he replied, “I didn’t. It was sent to me as an advertisement.
They are selling them at £5 5s. a-piece, and they asked me to take a
dozen and try to dispose of them. What would you do if you were in my
place?”
“Well,” we replied, “we would empty the bottles, clean them, and use
them for better purposes, as they may be required, and the box you
might give to your daughter as a workbox.”
But another person standing near was not disposed to think so lightly
of the matter, and told the chemist that he ought to telegraph at
once to the people who had had the impertinence to send a respectable
chemist such a concern, saying, “If you do not remove your rubbish
within twenty-four hours, I’ll sue you for warehouse room.”
These homœopathic cases are very popular, and many persons buy them
thinking that they can do what they pretend to do. We cannot warn you
too strongly against purchasing these things. Avoid them as you would
poison. No, we do not mean to be taken literally. There are no poisons
in these chests. We have a law which prevents the indiscriminate sale
of poison.
Now let us describe _our_ medicine chest. Oh, let us see what we want
it for before we fit it up.
You do not want a medicine chest to contain everything you _may_
require. You want it to contain everything that is absolutely
necessary for emergencies. There are practically three classes of
emergencies—injuries, acute poisoning, and acute disease.
The surgical part of the box is far more important than the medical
part. Let us talk about injuries first. Bleeding requires instantaneous
treatment. If a person wounds a big vessel, she may bleed to death in
half a minute or less. So you must act at once if you wish to be of any
value.
You can stop bleeding of any kind instantly by pressure. Never forget
this. Never go running about to look for a tourniquet or what not when
a great vessel has been cut. Press on the bleeding place. Press at
once. You do not want very much force to compress an artery; but the
force must be continuous. When you have stopped the flow of blood, then
think of sending for assistance. When a person is bleeding from a deep
wound, press the lips of the wound together. Not the edges only—this
is no good. Press the complete thickness of the lips of the wound
together. If you cannot do this, stuff your handkerchief into the wound
and press on that.
A not uncommon cause of bleeding to death is rupture of a varicose
vein. Hundreds of thousands of women have varicose veins, but in very
few do the veins rupture. Still, if a vein does get torn and the
patient does not know what to do, her life will be lost while seeking
assistance.
If you have a varicose vein, it will almost for certain be in the leg,
and if it bursts, you will feel the hot stream of blood and rapidly
become faint. When this occurs, lie down on the floor and elevate the
leg as high as you can. This alone may stop the bleeding. If it does
not, press your finger on the spot, and then send or call out for
assistance. The slightest pressure will stop bleeding from a vein.
In these cases of serious bleeding, send for a surgeon as soon as you
have applied pressure. In all probability the vessel will have to be
tied. But if the nearest surgeon is two or three hundred miles away,
keep up the pressure and get someone else to put on a bandage pressing
very tightly upon a pad, which in its turn presses upon the bleeding
vessel.
In the case of a varicose vein or a small artery, this treatment will
probably prove successful.
Whenever you cut yourself, the raw surface bleeds more or less. You can
stop this kind of bleeding either by pressure, or by hot water. There
is never anything to be alarmed at when blood oozes out from a wound,
even though a considerable quantity of blood be lost. As long as there
are not jets of blood, there is little danger in bleeding. Pressure
will soon stop this form of bleeding.
That will do for the first and most important of all emergencies. What
have we to put in our box for this purpose? Nothing at all. All we
require is a hand and presence of mind.
Now about the treatment of wounds. First stop the bleeding, if this is
severe. Then wash your own hands. Wash them well. Plenty of soap and
hot water. Good hard work with the nail brush. Your hands should be
absolutely clean before you meddle with a wound.
Now you will want some antiseptic. The best of all is carbolic acid.
Mind you, this is poison. But if you are careful, and label the bottle
and lock it up in your box, there is little danger in your possessing
it. Your bottle of carbolic acid should be a good big one holding ten
ounces at least. It should contain a solution of carbolic acid in
distilled water of the strength of one part of pure crystallised phenol
to twenty parts of water. It must be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle,
which must be labelled—
“Carbolic Acid.
1 in 20.
POISON.”
When used for washing wounds dilute this fluid with four times its
volume of warm boiled water. Having washed your own hands, thoroughly
wash first with soap and warm water, and then with the carbolic
solution, the skin round the wound of your patient. Do not be content
with washing merely the immediate neighbourhood of the wound, but wash
well round it in every direction.
Now to treat the wound itself. Take a perfectly clean basin and rinse
it out with boiling water. Into this put your carbolic solution diluted
with warm water to the strength of 1 in 80. Have plenty of the solution
ready. Now wash the wound in the antiseptic. For this purpose you will
require a small glass syringe and some pellets of perfectly clean
absorbent cotton wool.
The wound must be absolutely clean—not a minute speck of dirt may be
left in it. When you have washed the wound absolutely clean, take a
small square of clean lint, wring it out in the solution of carbolic
acid, and cover the wound with it while you take out the materials with
which you are going to dress the wound.
You must not touch the table or the chair, and you must not touch your
handkerchief or anything else, while you are dressing a wound. Microbes
lurk everywhere except in the carbolic acid, and in the dressings, if
they are clean. And if you are careful, you can prevent any germs
from getting into the wound; and this is the most important thing
in surgery. Do not let the dressings touch the table. Deposit them
carefully on a clean towel, which you have previously wrung out with
the carbolic solution, and laid upon the table.
Of course the dressing you use must vary a little with the nature of
the wound you are treating. If the wound is sharp cut or is perfectly
clean and not ragged, dust it over thickly with powdered boracic acid.
Then cover it with a small piece of absorbent gauze—the blue “sal
alembroth” gauze is the best. Swathe thickly in cotton wool and put on
a clean bandage.
There is no need to again dress the wound, unless it becomes hot and
painful. If you have got the wound absolutely clean, when the dressings
have been on for a few days, it will have completely healed without
discharging more than a few drops of fluid. If, however, the wound
smarts, it must be dressed again, and possibly every other day. It
should be dressed in the same way as it was in the first instance.
When the wound is very jagged, or impossible to get thoroughly clean,
it is best to put on fomentations for the first day or two.
Fomentations have taken the place of poultices in modern surgery.
Never put a poultice of any kind near an open wound. All your care and
cleanliness will go for nothing if you do.
To make fomentations take a square of lint and fold it twice. Then
wring it out in boiling carbolic solution (1 in 80) and apply it as
hot as it can be borne. Cover it with a square of oiled silk, put on a
thick layer of wool, and bandage. Fomentations should be renewed three
or four times a day.
When treating a wound, never use sticking-plaster except to keep on
a dressing. Sticking-plaster must never be placed on a wound, and
above all it must not cover the wound. If it does so, it will keep the
discharge locked up under it. The discharge will decompose, and a very
serious state of affairs may intervene. Free drainage is essential in
all wounds, and if this is interfered with, the wounds will go wrong.
What have we to put in our box for the treatment of wounds? The
following—
Carbolic acid solution, powdered boracic acid, sal alembroth gauze,
surgeon’s lint, absorbent cotton wool, oiled silk, bandages, pair of
scissors, syringe (glass).
Burns are common accidents, and though they do not call for such rapid
treatment as do wounds, nevertheless, it is always advisable to see to
them at once.
The pain of burns and scalds is often very severe, especially when the
flesh is not deeply burnt. You can relieve the pain by the application
of sweet oil, or by an emulsion of sweet oil and lime water, sometimes
called carron oil. The latter is better, but the former can be obtained
in any household, so it is not worth while filling up your box with the
emulsion.
After a burn, if the skin has not been destroyed, a blister will form.
This blister can be left alone, pricked, or removed entirely. If you
are not certain of cleanliness or you do not possess antiseptics, never
open a blister. If you leave it, the liquid will become absorbed and
the cuticle will flake away.
You are usually told to prick blisters as soon as they are fully
formed. This treatment we cannot countenance. If you are sure of
cleanliness, and the needle you use is absolutely sterile (_i.e._, free
from germs), and if, moreover, your after-treatment is properly carried
out, then there is no danger in pricking a blister. But no amateur ever
is certain of perfect cleanliness. And we fail to see the advantage of
pricking the blister after all.
Suppose the needle you use is dirty, just see what a state of things
may occur. Your needle is dirty—it is swarming with germs. You prick
the blister with it—that is, you introduce into a cavity filled with
warm solution of albumen the organisms of putrefaction. This is just
what the microbes like, and they will rapidly render the contents of
the blister putrid. And now neither the microbes nor the matter can
escape, for the prick has long ago become obliterated. Nor can you
apply anything to kill these germs or promote healing.
The third way to treat a blister is to cut away the whole of the
cuticle confining it. This is dead skin, and so removing it causes no
harm. You can now apply an antiseptic ointment to the raw surface. The
best is an ointment of boracic acid, oil of eucalyptus and vaseline.
Oh, but when you cut open the blister, do you not let the germs in?
Yes, you do, unless you have been scrupulously careful that everything
you used was perfectly clean. But even if you have introduced germs, it
is not so very serious here, for you apply the ointment directly to the
raw surface. So now the microbes get the worst of it. There is nothing
for them to eat; there is nothing preventing them from getting away;
and there is a (to them) poisonous ointment applied directly to them.
We said everything you use must be clean. We must therefore tell you
how to sterilise needles, scissors, etc. You are usually told to
sterilise instruments by passing them through a flame. Now this has
many disadvantages. In the first place, merely passing a knife through
a flame does not even warm it. Then, if you leave it in the flame long
enough, you spoil its temper and make it dirty with soot.
By far the best way to sterilise instruments is to boil them. Sterilise
your needles, etc., by boiling them in solution of carbolic acid in a
test-tube.
To treat burns, what must we add to our chest? Boracic acid ointment,
that is all.
Now for fractures. If you are taking a drive with a friend, and the
horse bolts, and you are both thrown out, but you escape uninjured,
while your friend breaks her arm or leg, what are you going to do? You
are going to “set” the fracture, are you? Oh, no, you are not! Not
if your friend has her wits about her. Have you ever set a fracture
before? Have you ever seen a fracture set? Do you know anything about
setting a fracture? Of course you do not. You would find that setting a
fracture was not the simple thing you think it is.
But wait a minute, we are not yet satisfied that the leg is broken. How
do you know that her leg is fractured? If you see the bone protruding,
or an angle or lump anywhere between the joints, or if your friend
cannot move her leg, or if she can move the upper half but not the
lower half, or if she thinks that her leg is broken because she heard
a snap, or for other reasons, you may be pretty certain that the leg
is broken. You cannot tell for certain, and you must not try to make
certain. If you attempt to prove that her bone is broken, you may
convert a simple into a compound fracture—a trivial into an extremely
serious condition.
But you must do something. Here you are, out on a road, five miles
from anywhere, with a friend lying in the road with a broken leg. What
are you to do? Splint the leg. For a splint you may use an umbrella, a
walking-stick, a branch of a tree, a newspaper strengthened with twigs,
or anything that is handy. Place the splint against the limb, and with
your own and your friend’s handkerchiefs tie the splint to the leg.
Tie it with the handkerchiefs a long way above and below the broken
place. Then place your friend on the floor of the conveyance and drive
slowly home or to the nearest surgeon.
Upon this emergency-splinting a very great surgeon—let us call him Sir
William Sawyer—tells an amusing story. He was walking along a country
road, and came across a cart overturned, with one wheel broken, in the
middle of the road. A man was lying near the cart. On approaching him
the surgeon saw that his thigh was broken. He immediately turned out
his pockets and found two old newspapers. Between these two papers he
“sandwiched” a good number of twigs, and then wrapped the whole concern
about the thigh of the injured man.
When he had done this, he became aware of the presence of a second man,
apparently uninjured, staring at him. He therefore bade him go to the
nearest village and fetch a surgeon.
When he got to the village, he went to the nearest medical man and
asked him to come quickly, for “an old idiot was stuffing his mate with
newspapers.” What was the medical man’s surprise to see that the “old
idiot” was Sir William Sawyer!
(_To be continued._)
“OUR HERO.”
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the
Dower House,” etc.