It may be used in the form of powder or mixed with oil or vaselin. The sur face should be disinfected with a boric acid lotion, and after opening the vesi cles aristol is applied and the whole is covered with sterilized cotton-wool, gutta-percha paper, and a bandage. The application of aristol powder directly to the wound at the beginning hinders the dressing from soaking up the secretion; when the latter has diminished, how ever, aristol may be applied either alone or in a 10-per-cent. ointment with olive oil, vaselin, and lanolin.
Aristol is of great service in the treat ment of scalds and burns. After a thorough disinfection and cleansing of the burned area, and the opening of the vesicles, a dressing is applied of aristol salve, smeared upon sterilized gauze in a layer of about the thickness of a knife blade, and this dressing is changed daily. The dressing is covered with cotton, and held in place with gauze bandages. In personal cases, at first an aristol salve. consisting of 5 grammes; ol. olivm, 10 grammes; lanolin, 40 grammes, was ap plied, and, when the wound surface had become smaller and granulations had formed, aristol powder was dusted on, and covered with gauze and cotton. Edward Itoelig (Deutsche med.-Zeit., No. 56, '99).
Of late the French surgeons have lauded picric acid used in saturated solu tions with water (increasing the solubil ity by means of the addition of 1 ounce of alcohol, as the acid is soluble to the extent of only 2 drachms to the quart of water). They claim that it is par ticularly useful for the relief of pain and that it greatly assists the formation of granulations. I can subscribe to both of these statements, as many excellent results have followed its use in my hands.
A remedy for burns must be analgesic, antiseptic, and also keratogenous: three qualities possessed by picric acid in so lution of 1 to 200. Its use is also free from accidents sometimes caused by antiseptics. Filleul (L'Union Pharm., Dec., '05).
Picric acid employed extensively, using a solution made by dissolving 1 V, drachms of pieric acid in 3 ounces of alcohol, which is then diluted with 2 pints of distilled water, a saturated solu tion being thus procured.
The clothing over the injured part should be gently removed, and the burnt or scalded portion should be cleaned as thoroughly as possible with a piece of absorbent cotton-wool soaked in the lotion. Blisters should be pricked, and
the serum should be allowed to escape, care being taken not to destroy the epi tlielial surfaces. Strips of sterilized gauze are then soaked in the solution of picric acid. and are so applied as to cover the whole of the injured surface. A thin layer of absorbent cotton-wool is put over the gauze. and the dressing is kept in place by a light linen bandage. The moist dressing soon dries, and it may be left in place for three or four days. It must then be ehanged, the gauze being thoroughly moistened with the picric acid solution, for it adheres very closely to the skin. The second dressing is ap plied in exactly the same manner as the first, and it may be left on for a week. The great advantages of this method of treatment are: First, that the picric acid seems to deaden the sense of pain; and, secondly, that it limits the tendency to suppuration, for it coagulates the albuminous exudations, and healing takes place under a scab consisting of epithelial cells hardened by picric acid. A smooth and supple cicatrix remains, which is as much superior to the ordi nary scar from a burn as our present surgical scar is superior to that obtained by our predecessors, who allowed their wounds to granulate. D'Arcy Power (Medico-Surg. Bull., Feb. 10, '97). Personal experience in fifty cases has shown that it is advisable to let the shreds of clothing which have been burned into the skin remain until the second dressing; the cloth having been asepticized by burning, it will do no harm by remaining, while removal can only be accomplished by stripping away the flesh. The cloth will act as a capil lary drain into the skin and it will pro mote a permeation of the acid solution into the injured tissue. At a second dressing the thoroughly-soaked fibres can be more easily removed. Dressings soaked in picric-acid solution do not ad here as much as other applications. Thompson (St. Louis Med. Review, Feb. 20, '97).
Picric acid is only useful in burns of first and second degrees, its particular action being to stimulate the growth of epidermis. It allays pain. In burns of the third degree it checks suppuration, hut does not hasten granulation. C. Willems (Ann. de la Soc. Beige de Chin, May 15, '93).