South Carolina Temperance Advocate

STYPTIC ACTION OF CREOSOTE.

Drs. Müller and Reuter have lately instituted a series of experiments for the purpose of ascertaining the styptic properties of creosote, when applied directly to a bleeding surface. The haemorrhage from the division of the crural vein in dogs was found to be arrested by the application of a plug of cotton which had been well moistened in the creosote.

In the case of divided or wounded arteries it was necessary to keep up a certain degree of compression for some time, in order that the creosote might be able to act upon their parietes. Upon examining the cut arteries afterwards, they were always found to be quite closed or obliterated at the part, exhibiting outwardly an umbilical depression, which corresponded with a conical shaped coagulum within: the coats of the vessel were usually inflamed for the extent of an inch or so.

The creosote was found to be a more decided and secure haemostatic remedy than the far-famed aqua Binelli. Creosoted water sufficed to stop the bleeding from an oozing surface, when no large vessels had been divided. When creosote was injected into veins, the blood was found to be instantaneously coagulated.

Professor Schneider, of Munich, had recently an opportunity of using creosote as a styptic in one of his patients. An old man was subject to most profuse haemorrhage from the mouth. He had lost several pounds of blood, and a variety of means had been ineffectually tried to arrest the haemorrhage.

M. Schneider made him fill his mouth with water charged with creosote (eau creosotee); after the third mouthful, the bleeding ceased, and did not afterwards return.—Med. Chirurg. Rev., from Schmidt's Jahrbücher.