Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1911 — Acid Snow for Birthmarks [ARTICLE]

Acid Snow for Birthmarks

Wonderful Cures Worked by Carbonic ice in London n-iospitals—Many Skin Diseases Cured. London.—in less than a year the carbonic acid snow treatment for birthmarks, warts and rodent ulcer, first Introduced at Charing Cross hospital, has gained an accepted place in modern therapeutics. The early experiments with the new remedy have been so successful in suitable cases that now practically every hospital In the country, as well as thousands of general practitioners and skin specialists, is making use of the new medicament The snow is prepared by allowing a thin spray of carbonic acid gas, liquefied under pressure, to escape into a felt covering slipped over the tap of the iron cylinder containing the gas. The gas is deposited on the felt as a very fine powered snow at a temperature of about 100 degrees below zero. The snow is then solidified into an icy pencil by being tightly packed into a hard rubber cylinder with a plunger. Treatment consists of pressing this intensely cold pencil of carbonic acid Ice for a few seconds against the birthmark, wart or rodent ulcer to be re-

moved. The resulting Intense cold freezes the part, setting up severe local inflammation, which leads, to a breaking down and absorption of the frozen tissues. There is very little pain and the wound heals naturally in a few days, leaving the skin practically normal. “The carbonic acid snow, ice, treament has come to stay,” said one of the surgeons in charge of the electrical department of St Bartholomew’s hospital. “Warts are readily removed in one application, and the results in small non-vascular birthmarks—that is. without large blood vessels—are marvelous. In early rodent ulcer we have also been very successful." In the St Bartholomew’s dispensary, where the snow is made in bulk, the whole apparatus used consists of a ruler, a heavy piece of felt and an iron cylinder containing forty pounds of liquefied gas. The felt is first tightly rolled about the ruler, which is then withdrawn, leaving a long hollow tube. One end of this tube is then tightly strapped over the tap of the cylinder, a cork is put tn the other end and the gas is turned on. In a few seconds the tube is filled with a carbonic acid icicle, ready for use on unrolling the felt