The village-pastor's surgical and medical guide, in letters from an old physician to a young clergyman, his son.

  • Skrimshire, F. (Fenwick), 1774 or 1775-1855.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The village-pastor's surgical and medical guide, in letters from an old physician to a young clergyman, his son. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    68/448 (page 52)
    tJ>-J meet the preconceived notions of nil renders, ns to the proper ncceptation of the terms. By scalds, then, I menn injuries inflicted on the living body by hented wnter, oil, spirits, or other matter, which, at the usual temperature of the atmosphere, exists in a fluid state. Ibis term, therefore, you perceive, is applicable to injuries from steam or vapour, as well as fluids. By the term buvn I shall designate all injuiies sustained by the living body from any inflammable substance in a state of ignition, as from burning coal, or burn- ing oil, or ignited firedamp or other gas; also from heated substances not in a state of igni- tion, which at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere are in a solid form, as heated stones, metals, glass, &c., whether these substances be in a state of fusion, or in their natural state of solidity. The substances above enumerated are most of them in common use, and therefore become the ordinary sources of tins description of accident. I cannot, I think, treat the subject alter a better method than by dividing these accidents into scalds and burns, and illustrating each class by some of the most common kinds of accident, to which you are likely to be called. First then of Scalds. It is not necessary that the water, or other fluid, should be at the boil- ing temperature, to produce the injury denominated scald, for water at two hundred degrees of heat,