of cotton, saturated with the mixture, over the wound. In the course of a few days, and with no other treatment, all effects of the bite disappeared."
In 1536, two years after his first experience with actual warfare in the vicinity of Susa, Italy, and while he was still very young to assume so great a responsibility, Paré—as we learn from the text of Chapter 28, Book X., of Malgaigne's edition—performed the operation of exarticulation of the elbow-joint (the first recorded instance of this operation, says von Gurlt). The case was that of a common soldier who had been shot through the forearm, a little above the wrist, who had been treated unsuccessfully by other surgeons, and who, at the time when he came under Paré's care, was suffering from a variety of complications—viz., gangrene extending as high up as the shoulders, extensive inflammation of the integuments on the adjacent side of the thorax, and other symptoms that pointed toward a fatal issue. To complicate matters, it was winter and the only approximately warm shelter available was a cow-stable. At this early date, in the history of surgery, the practice of ligating the blood-vessels which had been divided in the course of an amputation had not yet been adopted, and consequently the red-hot cautery had to be employed for arresting the bleeding which followed the operation. (See also page 512.) In addition to the amputation it was found necessary to make a number of long and deep incisions into the inflamed tissues and to apply the actual cautery freely "for the purpose of drying up and destroying the virulent matters that had penetrated these parts." Then, fourteen days later, the patient, who had been lying all this time, exposed to draughts of air, upon a receptacle intended for the storage of grain, and who was protected from the cold by only the scantiest coverings, developed trismus (lockjaw). When this new complication appeared Paré, already at his wits' end to find means with which to overcome the difficulties which surrounded the case, decided first to have the man removed to an adjacent stall in which there were several cows, the presence of which in such a confined space might be counted upon to increase appre-
