The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-09-30
REMARKABLE CURE FOR BURNS
The Discovery of French Surgeon Has Prevented I'm
told Pain and Disagreement Among Those Wounded
in the War

Last March The Outlook published
Some War Impressions of an Ameri-
can Woman. The article was made
up of extracts from letters written
home by a young New England
woman who volunteered for hospital
work among the soldiers of the allies
in France. In the current issue of
The Outlook a second series of letters
from this woman worker appears. Be
low we quote a passage in one Of them
which treats of a remarkable new
method of handling frost-bite and
burns, the invention of a modest
French surgeon. The cure is described
with an air of authority and verify.
For the benefit Of those who may be
moved to assist the inventor and help
him to bring his treatment into wider
use, The Outlook gives his name as
Dr. Barthc de Sandfort, Hospital st.
Nicholas, -le-MoulineauX, Pres de
Paris. The extract from the letter
here follows:
Hotel du Commerce ct de l'Epee
Nannes, Morbihan, May 9, 1916
] have been to a hospital (not here
where | saw the most wonderful cures
wrought on suffering men that | have
eve: seen in my life. Indeed, the
whole thing is such a miracle that il
is hard to write coIlectedly about it
and ! know YOU will accuse me in any
case of exaggeratiop until you set
the photographs | am sending. They
/ don { lie! Unless you see them or the
men with your own eyes you think tn,
one who tells you must be drawin}
upon vivid imagination. l did unit
! went myself.
1t is a small annex of an immens
hospital where burns and frozen hand
aud feet are treated, and there I say
IL men (there were more) who ha,
had burning tar played upon them b,
the most recently perfected device o
their so-called civilized enemy. 9Th
allies won t use IT'D When the
reached the hospital the tar was sti
burning, their clothes were burned of
Don t think | went out of curiosity
Heaven forbid! / went to see thi
marvellous cure and to try to interes
others III it. And | went knowing tina
it would be intensely painful to wit
ness. Mr.. w. said ycsterday-hc wen
to visit the hospital at my suggestio
that he considered it the creates
discovery since chloroform, and ever
other person with whom l have talke
= has come away marSeling.
{ l hardly know where to begin.
We went first to see the dressin
done upon those whose feet and hand
had been frozen at Eerdun, men VIII
: had been lying ON watch, immobile f.
days, moving neither hands nor fec
for fear of being discovered by ii
enemy, along a part of the lines whe1
trenches are impossible because
swampy soil. Have you ever see
gangrenous feet or hands? Do yc
know what things of horror they ca
become? Do YOU know what the odt
of gangrene is? And do you kno
that almost always the foot or han
if not the whole limb, must be amp
tated? Then you will know somethir
of the wonder when l tell you that
all the dozens and dozens sent to tn
surgeon only one had to have his lie,
amputated, and of the others only
few lost their toes, and these becau
they had been first treated in 9th
ways at other hospitals, and time h;
been lost before they reached his. "
saw the dressing being done. 1t too
great courage to look. Ordinal
wounds are nothing to these. But II
a man hinched or cried out, becau
not one suffered any pain And TIL
was why | could stand it.
One man talked to me in Englis
He had been waiter in n New Yor
hotel. lie talked calmly and smiling
while his dreadful feet were beil
painted with a white, waxv liqui
(This is the wonder of which / an
tell you later.) Another lay on
stretcher rolling bandage unconcer
edly while they dressed his STUMP
''Does it hurt?' l asked. ''Not at ali.
he replied; ''but before l reached he
- There were others and Other
all with the same sort of hands al
feet all cheerful and interested
their own cases, all witnessing to t