These may be clean, as when made by a knife; torn, by a broken plate; or abraded, by a fall on hard, rough ground. If large and deep, the surgeon should be called at once. In trifling cases, the nurse must first thoroughly cleanse the wound by sponging it with hot water and then with an antiseptic solution of bichloride of mercury, I part to 3000, using a ball of absorbent cotton for a sponge. Any flow of blood should be checked by pressure, by the application of hot water, or should the hemorrhage be obstinate - by the use of a solution of alum. In the case of a knife cut, the next step is to press the edges together, fix them in this position by applying narrow strips of surgeon's adhesive plaster at short intervals across the wound, and cover the whole with antiseptic gauze. A torn wound may be dressed in the same way, but greater care is required to coadapt the edges. For abrasions, the best application is a piece of lint or absorbent cotton saturated with the bichloride solution already mentioned, fixed by a bandage. Neither dressing need be removed unless disarranged or in the event of suppuration taking place; in the latter case the wound must be washed with the antiseptic solution and redressed each day. When an artery is cut, the flow of blood must be checked by pressure on the vessel above the seat of injury; in the case of a vein, below it. Arterial blood flows in jets and is scarlet; venous blood runs in a continuous stream and is purple in color.

It is most important to remember that the bichloride solution is an active poison and that, consequently, it must be most carefully handled and guarded. It should be kept in a blue bottle labeled "Poison," and never left where there is the slightest risk of its being tasted and swallowed by the child or attendants, and never placed with the ordinary nursery medicines. 19