Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — Medicine at White Heat. [ARTICLE]

Medicine at White Heat.

A young American under treatment by Dr. Browq-Sequard, of Paris, writes home an account of that physician’s favorite method of treatment, V the burning of the flesh over the spine, which is interesting in itself, and also as tending to correct or modify greatly the prevalent conception of extreme physical torture as a necessity of the operation. In the first week of his undergoing the actual cautery there were four applications, the first in seven places along the back, the second and third on the head and the back, the fourth on the head only. In connection with this he took (separately) iodide of potassium and arsenic, and subcutaneous iiyections of atroplane and morphine. The burning, he proceeds to say, is not burning at all. “The instrument is of platinum (t e. : as to the tip), and is heated to a white heat in a coal fire; then it is applied two or three times and immediately put back in the fire for the next application. While red-hot iron or platinum would make a terrible burn, there is almost no pain whatevd® when it is at a white heat. I caii’t say there is no pain, for at the moment of application there is a sensation almost like that of ahum; but the instant the instrument is removed the feeling is gone, and there is no sensation whatever afterward. There is, of course, a sear at each point, with a dry scab that wears off, leaving the skin' in its •original state. So that it is really only a drying of the outer layer of the skin; there is no rawness of the fJesh. tlfie has only to guard against the rubbing of the collar on one of these spotß; otherwise there Ssu’ttfie least inconvenience. The skin of the head heals still more quickly, .though it is rather more sensitive; and, in .fact, the sensitiveness increases somewhat after the first application, both on the head and on the back. It is rather worse than a mosquito bite, to which Brown--Sequard compared it, but I stood it without yelling or groaning, and even without clenching my hands. The severity of the treatment has been very much exaggerated in popular estimation, and the above account is as near the truth as '.words will allow.”