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weeks, without any sort of dressing or washing;the patient was confined to his house about twomonths, and was not perfectly recovered tillnear a twelvemonth, when he seemed as healthyand as strong as ever, with scarcely any coughhaving supervened in the meanwhile. This wasconsidered a very dangerous wound, and a verywell conducted cure. Mr. Mariner does notknow that they are acquainted either with theexact situation or existence of the intercostalarteries.
It often happens that the arrow, not being abarbed one, is withdrawn without any difficulty;but still the surgeon thinks proper to performthe operation of cawso, not by enlarging thewound made by the arrow, but by making an-other at some little distance from it, in a partwhich, either from judgment or education, hedeems more safe and proper. In all those per-sons whom Mr. Mariner knew to have under-gone the cawso it had been performed in nearlythe same situation as the one above stated.
We have observed in the before-mentionedcase that the wound was not washed, and itmay here be noticed, that in all cases of con-siderable wounds produced by pointed instru-ments the patient is not allowed to wash himselftill he is tolerably well recovered, nor to shave,cut his hair, nor his nails: for all these things
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