TREATS OPEN WOUNDS WITH HOT PARAFFIN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12260, 10 June 1914, Page 3

TREATS OPEN WOUNDS WITH HOT PARAFFIN.

13ATHKI) IN HEATKD WAX. l^.-ilis, .April 21. Tho use of boiling oil jis a t reatinont for open wounds :ukl ulcers is not, modern. Ambroise Pare, the master ol French survey, employed this method ol treating the wounds ol' soldiers about ■IOO years ago. Hut such a. treatment has just come to the forefront of medical discussion liv the communication addressed to the Academy of Medicine by Or Hanha de Sandfort, who lias been experimenting along this lino for the last thirteen years. Ambroise Pare found that, hv pouring hot, oil in an open wound ho was able to sterilise the wound and cause the quicker formation of nature's protective covering—the scab. One day, according t;o his memoirs, as he was treating tho wounded bottled up in Metz by Charles Quint ho was unable to obtain any more oil. l'aro was then forced to seek isome other method of stopping tho How of blood. Ho hit. upon the idea of the ligature of arteries and this made him famous. His name Ims come down to us as the father of modern surgery. Dr liar tho de Sandfort thirteen years ago took up the old .method and has improved uj>on it. Instead of using oil, which burns the wound, ho ustd paraffin, which does not burn. .He discovered. this method by plunging his linger into paraffin, heated to a 100 degrees centigrade. To his surprise ho found that, his finger was not burned, and that, the skin was rendered insensible to pain. This naturally gave him the idea of using heated parallin l'or the treatment of wounds and ulcer.-;. In his address before tho Acadomy of .Medicine Dr Barthe de Sandfort called his new branch of science "Kcritherapic," from the Greek keri, meriting wax. His entire method is based oil the ability of tissues to stand a. heat of from 50 degrees to 100 degrees and particularly on the oonlraetabilily of paraffin in cooling. This wax, when put. on a wound in a liquid .state, solidiiies around the wound .and preserves its heat much longer, than any substance which has hot water as a. base. Dr Barthe de Sandfort has added resins to his wax, particularly amber, which Eives a greater consistence to the para (lln. l'"or ton years Dr Jlerthe de Sandfort. used his discovery for treatment, of diseased arteries, . rheumatism, varicose veins, and similar maladies, and with considerable success. Then he had tho idea that he oould theat as well tho the entire body. So to test his theory he himself leaped into a vat of heated wax and escaped without danger. Ho thus describes that, experience: "On November o, 1909," ho said, "1 visited the oil refinery of Pantin, and to tho great astnonishment of tho manager, who accompanied me, 1 undressed ujid prepared to jump into the vat. The temperature in the refinery "'tis about 7 degrees centigrade. In the vat, which contained about 300 litres of paraffin, the temperature was 51 degrees. I was not burned at all, hut when 1. touched the metal bottom 1 found it extremely hot, and so had to keep swimming all the lime. 1 remained in the vat about five minutes. My pulse had increased appreciably, but otherwise I did not feel tho slightest inconvenience. When I climbed out the .coat of paraffin which covered me all over protected me from the cold, and oven when I had scraped it oil' 1 could not feel the temperature. "Tho next day 1 remained ten minutes in the vat, but I first took the precaution to put a, wooden plank on the bottom of the vat so as Jiot to burn my feet. The third time I tried, the. experiment- one of my confreres, Dr Pagnier jumped into the vat with inc. My conclusion from these experiments was that -the hot paraffin bath at fil degrees centigrade produced very abundant perspiration without any fatigue. On the contrary, I felt much moro active than ordinarily." Dr Alexis Carrel, of the Rockefeller Institute of New York, was apprised of Dr Rarthe de Sandfort's expon'moni« in 1910, and he attached great importance to them. Of them, he said in an address before the physicians of Ihe Broca. Hospital last year: "I have studied the method of treating ulcers, and my attention l was attracted by the substance ambrine, used by Dr Rarthe de Sandfort. Tbe way in which this substance acts- makes me think that it is the best possible treatment in skin grafting."