Cauterization

[natkova]

From wikipedia  Cauterization (or cauterisation, or cautery) is a medical practice or technique of burning a part of a body to remove or close off a part of it. It destroys some tissue in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, remove an undesired growth, or minimize other potential medical harm, such as infections when antibiotics are unavailable.

The practice was once widespread for treatment of wounds. Its utility before the advent of antibiotics was said to be effective at more than one level:

To prevent exsanguination
To close amputations
Cautery was historically believed to prevent infection, but current research shows that cautery actually increases the risk for infection by causing more tissue damage and providing a more hospitable environment for bacterial growth.  Actual cautery refers to the metal device, generally heated to a dull red glow, that a physician applies to produce blisters, to stop bleeding of a blood vessel, and for other similar purposes."

As we saw in some movies that main character after having wound heat metal to read hot and than put that on wound.

Are there  cases recorded in blacksmith books about this medicine procedure, on some weird way it reminded me that blacksmith long time ago could do this.

Or could assist doctors to do this procedure.

I saw this picture on youtube so i got inspired to open this topic

 

[BillyBones]

To paraphrase Josey Wales 

"If ya get hit, sing out and granny will slap iron to it." 

Movies make it seem as if cauterization was instant healing. I always figured that you still have a bullet wound and now a burn wound. That has to smart just a tad.  

[Les L]

My grandfather was a blacksmith in the early 1900’s and he told me that people would come to him with a fishhook embedded in their hand, he said he would push it through, cut the barb off, heat the shank with a piece of hot metal then back it out. I’ve never tried it and don’t plan to. 

[natkova]

Yeah i don't plan either but I find it interesting from movies i tought it was madw up, so it could be true 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I have cauterized several cuts when in the blacksmith shop and didn't want to stop to get a dressing put on it. Actually I hardly even felt it as long as the steel was at yellow heat. Of course when I was done the cut did get cleaned up and antibiotic ointment and dressing applied.

[mcostello]

I've cauterized Myself with no other injury present.

[Frosty]

Laser scalpels cauterize as they cut, it's not a myth or movie bull. I've cauterized a wound or two just not on purpose. It use to be standard for wart removal and an acquaintance had me help him do himself. He cut the female end off an old extension cord unraveled the wire a little and made a zig zag bridge that covered the offending wart and asked me to plug the cord in. I said,  "okay, on three" and just plugged it in, he was just starting to nod okay. The bridge wire made a pop sound and a puff of smoke, charred wart wore off in a couple days. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Les L]

I’m sure that all these spots on my body from getting burned while jammed in a corner welding would be considered as cauterized, but I never had one get infected in 45 years of welding

 

[lary]

15 hours ago, Les L said:

My grandfather was a blacksmith in the early 1900’s

So many stories from that generation and the next. My grandparents were young adults during the great depression, then they had to deal with the dust bowl era  in the Midwest that pushed them to the west. They always refereed to it as the 7 year drought. Then next there was the WW2 generation that had to grow up fast. 

 

[Gazz]

I watched a skin graft being done on a burned patient once.  One doctor would debride the dead or damaged skin with a thing called a Humby knife, sort of like a small plane that was dragged across the affected area then another doctor would follow behind the knife with with a battery powered cauterization tool to burn every spot that started to bleed sealing off the small blood vessels.  The graft would not take if blood filled the space between the new skin and the freshly planed skin.  Fascinating stuff!  Also made me aware of how dangerous it was to wash parts in gasoline as that is how the poor fellow had got burned.

[Frosty]

Thank you VERY MUCH Gazz, I had to do an image search to find out what a Humby knife looks like and then look a little further to see how they're used. Now I'm going to need mental floss all day at least! I get cauterizing during skin grafting as you say. It's funny how toxic blood is if it leaks in the body or wounds.

I recall reading an interview with a tattoo shaman who swabbed fresh blood on tattoos to make them scar. He'd rub the scab off and rub the subject's freshly drawn blood in vigorously. When asked for clarification if it was the vigorous rubbing or the blood that made the scars. The shaman said just rubbing made women's scars, a man's scars required blood to be large enough and showed examples of the difference. He did ritual scarring too.

Maybe an old Nat Geo magazine? My grandmother was a lifetime member so we had more Nat Geo mags than we had shelves, some so old they had plain brown covers with the name and issue # printed in black. The new Nat Geo can't hold a candle to the old issues, you'd have to read 6 or more issues worth of the new ones to have the same amount of actual articles as one of the old ones. There's always been advertising but the new Nat Geo mag is almost entirely ads. <sigh> The old Nat Geo wasn't a monthly mag, maybe yearly, I don't recall. It was always an event when one came in the mail though, we all took turns reading it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

Well this is not cautarization per se with iron but I heard you can do it with hot meat, b old people.

Don't know is it healthy but nail wounds can be healed with that.

[Gazz]

Watching the skin graft obviously made a great impression on me as that was in 1975 and I still remember the tool used, the Humby knife.  The surgeon doing the graft did some stuff wrong just to show the interns how NOT do a graft by using the knife on his leg where the grafts were taken from to show that the skin cut with the knife "was no good for anything" (in his words) to the added pain of the patient.  Granted the patient was under anesthesia and didn't feel it happening but when he awoke he would have an extra large gash in his leg that was totally unnecessary.

[JHCC]

When my grandfather was about three years old, he was jumped by a pack of sled dogs who probably would have killed him if one of the villagers hadn't intervened. My great-grandfather anesthetized him with ether (his last words before he went under were apparently "O this world!") and cauterized the wounds with a hot poker. In later years, he was bald as an egg, and you could still see the faint traces of all the scars on his scalp.

[ThomasPowers]

Cauterizing is a common thing in modern surgery using an electrocautery instead of a "plain scalpel".

from pubmed: Surgical incision using electrocautery can be quicker with less blood loss and postoperative pain scores than the scalpel incision.

(I once had a contact with the end of a hot piece of pipe rolling off the forge leaving a sickle moon scar; I tell folks who notice that it's a sign of a secret society I belong to...) 

[Frosty]

Ah yes, "The Society Of The UAC," I know it well. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[natkova]

I had now experience while I was hot filing , it is not  painful at alland u can feel my wound will heal quickly.

 

I missed stroke while I was filing so I got cut on hot red iron .