Sangree

“ I made Sangree change into the bows and got into the steering seat myself, putting the girl between us so that I could watch them both by keeping their outlines against the sea and stars. For the intuitions of certain folk—women and children usually, I confess—I have always felt a great respect that has more often than not been justified by experience; and now the curious emotion stirred in me by the girl's words remained somewhat vividly in my consciousness. ”

“ At the back of Sangree’s tent stood a thin group of pine trees, but in front and at the sides the ground was comparatively clear. The flap was wide open and any ordinary animal would have been out and away without the least trouble. Dr. Silence led me up to within a few feet, evidently careful not to advance beyond a certain limit, and then stooped down and signalled to me to do the same. And looking over his shoulder I saw the interior lit faintly by the spectral light reflected from the fog, and the dim blot upon the balsam boughs and blankets signifying Sangree ”

“ The others—singing Maloney, the bustling Bo’sun’s Mate, and Joan, that fascinating half-breed of undine and salamander—all showed the effects of a life so close to nature; but in their case the change was perfectly natural and what was to be expected, whereas with Peter Sangree, the Canadian, it was something unusual and unexpected. ”

“ He smiled in anticipation of that "arrangement." "He'll never quite understand how a wound on the Double can transfer itself to the physical body, but at least I can persuade him that the less he talks and 'explains' to-morrow, the sooner the forces will run their natural course now to peace and quietness."
He went away softly, and with the removal of his presence Sangree, sleeping heavily, turned over and groaned with the pain of his broken head. ”

“ He talked a lot of rubbish in his excitement. He declared he would sleep by day and sit up every night until he killed it. Again his rage touched my admiration; but I got him away before he made enough noise to wake the whole Camp.
"I have a better plan than that," I said, watching his face closely. "I don't think this is anything we can deal with. I'm going to send for the only man I know who can help. We'll go to Waxholm this very morning and get a telegram through."
Sangree stared at me with a curious expression as the fury died out of his face and a new look of alarm took its place. ”

“ It is discover'd by the livid Colour of the Skin, which departs from the Flesh, the softness, coldness, and insensibility of the Part; and sometimes by its dryness and blackness, from whence exhales a cadaverous Stench, with Sanies issuing forth after Punctures or Scarifications made therein. Lastly, a Gangrene is perceiv'd by the cold Sweats, Swoonings, Syncope's, and Delirium's that invade the Patient, and which are all the Fore-runners of approaching Death.
Is a Gangrene only found in the Flesh, and soft Parts of the Body?
It happens also in the Bones; and is then call'd Caries. ”

“ Beauty!” she cried sharply. The fear in her voice brought the dogs lunging downstairs with fangs bared and hackles bristling. They leaped at the backs of the uninvited guests.
Father came in a few hours later. The door was swinging wide, the snow was blowing in. Torn scraps of clothing, spots of blood were about, and mother was unconscious on the floor. He poured whiskey down her throat. “It was only good whiskey that brought you to,” he often said afterwards, recalling his alarm. He used the same remedy to pull her through the ensuing six weeks of pneumonia. ”

“ This habit gave me an opportunity to use properly what might have been sent in boxes which arrived frequently from different quarters, filled with a variety of goodies, but in quantities entirely insufficient to supply all the soldiers. A sangaree or any other delicacy, taken while resting after a walk which taxed the weakened energies to the utmost, or a meal served outside the fevered air of the wards, did more to build up the strength than any amount of medicine could have done. ”

“ The chief of the former department was a club-footed little gentleman, with an abnormal head and a snaky look in his eyes, named Major E. L. Sanger. On our arrival in Elmira, another surgeon, remarkable chiefly for his unaffected simplicity and virgin ignorance of everything appertaining to medicine, played doctor there. But as the prisoners increased in numbers, a more formal and formidable staff was organized, with Sanger at the head.
Sanger was simply a brute, as we found when we learned the whole truth about him from his own people. ”

“ In both dry and moist gangrene, when the gangrenous process is arrested, the dead tissue is separated from the living by a process of inflammation; the living tissue, at its point of contact with the dead tissue, and for some distance from it, becomes red and swollen, and exhibits all the signs of acute inflammation. The line of contact between the dead and the living tissue is known as the line of demarcation, and the line of granulations which separates the dead tissue from the living, is known as the line of separation. ”

“ The presence of those clots in the cases of hospital gangrene, while they were absent in the cases in which there was no inflammatory symptoms, sustains the conclusion that hospital gangrene is a species of inflammation, imperfect and irregular though it may be in its progress, in which the fibrous element and coagulation of the blood are increased, even in those who are suffering from such a condition of the blood, and from such diseases as are naturally accompanied with a decrease in the fibrous constituent. ”

“ Of Internal Gangrene in the lungs, stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver. Pulmonick gangrene from inflammation, is predicted by sudden cessation of pain, without any benign crisis: expectoration either suppressed, or yellow, green, black, and fetid; hollow noise in the breast during respiration; dejected countenance; red and heavy eyes; foul and black tongue; quick, languid, and intermittent pulse; fetid urine, stools, and sweat; hiccup; cold sweats; universal debility and sinking of the vital powers. ”

“ Observe in fact that there is in gangrene two things which physicians do not sufficiently distinguish, 1st, the mortification of the part; 2d, its putrefaction. The mortification is always antecedent; it is produced by a thousand different causes; sometimes by the ligature of an artery, as in aneurism; sometimes by that of a nerve; often by violent inflammation; sometimes by a contusion, attrition, a bruise, &c. Whenever a part is dead in the midst of those which live, whatever may be the cause of its death, it becomes putrid precisely like a dead body, every part of which life has left. ”

“ We have previously seen that the blood is the life, and that the loss of it is the loss of so much life. Deluded by strange theories, and groping in physiological darkness, our fathers' physicians were too often Sangrados. Nourishing food, pure air, and hæmatized blood were stigmatized as the friends of disease and the enemies of convalescence. ”

“ When an inflammation will neither disperse, suppurate, nor become indurated, but, on the contrary, increase with a burning inflammation, and is prodigious painful; when the swelling continually increases, the parts become uncommonly tender, attended with a numbness; the 135colour changing from a fiery red into a livid ash colour, and the cuticula seems to separate on the touch, a gangrene has commenced. In this melancholy case there is no time to lose.—Apply the following powerful medicine, which in a gangrene, and even a sphacelus, has proved beneficial to a miracle. ”

“ Sometimes during life, some portion of the body is in a condition of gangrene, that is, the tissues are not only dead, but decomposing. With the evolution of gases, the softening and liquefaction of the solid parts, and the development of minute organisms, either animal or vegetable.
The bodies of persons who have died from such causes, decompose with unusual rapidity. The inner coats of the vessels are often stained with the coloring matter of the blood. The viscera are soft and flabby, the stomach may be swollen, and the kidneys congested and degenerated. ”

“ Like suppuration, gangrene is associated with and often caused by a bacterial growth. The dead mass remains as an irritant, and is slowly separated by the formation around it of embryonal tissue, granulations and pus. A second form is molecular gangrene, in which the cells and minute elements of the tissue die, and are cast off, leading to phagedenic (eating, extending) sores, as noted above under Ulceration. ”

“ The recollection of that evening remained with him when he ascended once more to the roof of the fort and saw the light of the fires above the sangars. A voice spoke at his elbow. "There is a new sangar being built in the garden. We can hear them at work," said Dewes. ”

“ Et un que j’en ouï dire à un empirique ces jours passés, qu’il faut avoir des sangsues et les mettre à la nature, et faire par là tirer et sucer le sang: lesquelles sangsues, en suçant, laisent et engendrent de petites ampoules et fistules pleines de sang; si bien que le galant mari, qui vient le soir des noces les assaillir, leur crève ces ampoules d’où le sang sort, et lui et elle s’ensanglantent, qui est une grande joie à l’un et à l’autre ”

“ Now, every skillful surgeon protects his patient from these spores, and, binding up the exposed flesh with antiseptic bandages, the wound heals rapidly without secondary symptoms. The existence of inflammatory gangrene in hospitals ought to be forever exorcised.
To religiously prominent men are built shrines, even though they did not perform miracles either during their lives or after death. ”

“ The Lungs, he saith, serve chiefly, by their constant agitation to comminute the bloud, and so to render it fit for a due circulation; which office he thinks to be performed in Fishes by the continual motion of their Gills, a Succedaneum to Lungs.
Sanguification, according to him, is chiefly performed and perfected by the frequent pulsions of the Heart, and the repeated ccontractions of its left Ventricle at the passing of the Sanguineous liquor from thence into the Aorta. ”

“ It is the most characteristic example of the dry type of gangrene. As the term indicates, it occurs in old persons, but the patient's age is to be reckoned by the condition of his arteries rather than by the number of his years. Thus the vessels of a comparatively young man who has suffered from syphilis and been addicted to alcohol are more liable to atheromatous degeneration leading to this form of gangrene than are those of a much older man who has lived a regular and abstemious life. This form of gangrene is much more common in men than in women. ”

“ If the symptoms continue without intermission, and become more violent, a mortification may be apprehended: thus, sudden cessation of pain; low pulse, and great weakness, denote that gangrene has taken place; but, in less urgent cases, where no remarkable changes happen for several days, a more favourable event may be expected; though, when the affection proceeds from injuries in other parts, or the swallowing of poisons, it generally terminates in death. ”

“ In diabetes, either form may obtain, and a diagnosis can be assured by the discovery of sugar in the urine.
The thickened condition of the arteries leading to senile gangrene must be thought of and proven in aged subjects. Dry gangrene is the rule in arteriosclerosis.
Reynaud’s disease, or synthetic gangrene, is due to a vasomotor spasmodic condition of the terminal vessels and is of central nerve origin. The tips of the toes and fingers, of both sides, are the most common sites, though the lobes of the ears, cheeks and tip of the nose may be affected. ”

“ But a silent sangar is an even more impressive thing than a clamorous one, and steadily, irresistibly, inevitably, the lines of brick and rubble grew closer. Soon they would be so near that one rush would assuredly carry the frantic swordsmen over the frail entrenchment. It all seemed very black upon the Wednesday evening. ”

“ The alternate termination is necrosis, or mortification. If the necrosis, or death of a part, is gradual, by small stages, each cell losing its vitality after the other in more or less rapid succession, it takes the name of ulceration. If it occurs in a considerable part at once, it is called gangrene. If this death of the tissues occurs deep in the organism, and the destroyed elements and proliferated and dead cells are inclosed in a cavity, the result of the process is called an abscess. ”

“ It soon discusses the swelling, [Pg 152] or if pus has already formed, allays the the pain, and brings the pus to the surface, and if continued, disposes it to heal rapidly.
Baptisia Tinctoria applied as a poultice either in the powdered drug, or with some other substance wet with the infusion or tr., arrests gangrene in a short time. It is especially useful for threatened or actual gangrene arising from lacerated wounds or scalds with wounds, as in accidents connected with the explosion of steam boilers; when we often have scalds and lacerations in the same wound. ”

“ During this period an extraordinary epidemic prevailed at a village called Mandroros, in Russia,—gangrene of the spleen. From the singular nature of this disease, a description will probably be found interesting. It commenced without any premonitory symptoms; the patient was suddenly seized with a feeling of burning at the pit of the stomach, accompanied by an insupportable pain in the left hypochondria; lassitude, with vomiting of a greenish bitter fluid, bowels naturally active, urine scanty, loss of appetite, and laborious respiration. ”

“ Weak solutions of other chemicals such as lysol, acetic acid, and potassium or sodium hydroxide, employed as a wet dressing, are also capable of producing gangrene.
Symptoms. (Dry Gangrene) . Typical dry gangrene usually develops in the toes and the feet, and the principal symptoms which point to its advent are, coldness, numbness, pain and tingling in the feet and muscles of the legs. Persons about to be affected with dry gangrene often complain for months, before any local signs of gangrene are present, of severe burning pain in the feet at night when warm in bed. ”