IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF CERTAIN SUBSTANCES EMPLOYED FOR SOME SURGICAL AND THERAPEUTICAL APPLICATIONS
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Louis Fontana at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 22nd April
1872.
I, LOUIS FONTANA, of Number Forty-eight, Rue des Marais, Paris,
in France, Merchant, hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF CERTAIN SUBSTANCES EMPLOYED FOR
SOME SURGICAL AND THERAPEUTICAL APPLICATIONS," to be as follows :-
(1.) My Invention or improvement consists of the combination of
pharmaceutical preparations with substances woven, milled, felted, or
made of paste, or pulp, or vegetable fibre, and fibrous or filamentary
materials of cotton, hemp, flax, wool, or tow, mixed or unmixed with
antiseptic matter; which substances may be employed for certain sur-
gical applications, such as the treatment of hemorrhage and wounds and
in certain therapeutical applications, such as the reduction of swellings
or incipient tumors, for whitlows, burns, scalds, chilblains, and in
certain nervous and muscular affections; and further, it consists of the
protection of such prepared substances so far as practicable from ulterior
deterioration by atmospheric contact.
(2.) The substance to be used being previously cleaned by removing
any injurious foreign matter it may be submitted to a preservative-
saturation, or a coating by way way of paint, if not already endued with

page_text: an analogous quality; as for example is tarred tow. This preliminary
treatment is only requisite when the substance is to be kept long for
use; but it may otherwise be dispensed with, and in respect to my
second pharmaceutical preparation herein-after mentioned it may be
wholly dispensed with.
(3.) In its dry state after this preliminary process the substance
in that condition if so prepared or otherwise in its cleansed and dry
state is impregnated or coated sufficiently to render it energetic in
action with a pharmaceutical amalgam or solution the base of which
has the properties of being anti-hemorrhagic or styptic, allopathic, and 1
anodyne for certain purposes.
(4.) For this impregnation or coating I use preferentially a liquid
or mixture composed, 1st., of tritochloride or hydrochloride of peroxide
of iron, and a curative stimulant such as arnica, or any other thera-
peutical ingredient having the like effect, which I empirically find
intensifies and accelerates the curative action, in solution with water
in greater or less proportion according to the nature of the application
and substance for which it is intended; secondly, another pharma-
ceutical liquid or mixture which I employ for some of the purposes
aforesaid is composed of the specific called "cau hémostatique do
Pagliari," or Pagliari's styptic water, with arnica or other curative
stimulant of similar nature in admixture with water.
(5.) This part of my combination consisting of the impregnation
or coating of the substance to be used, and which I call the "pharma-
ceutical preparation," may be effected by hand in trays or troughs by
steeping or soaking superficially or, by saturation, or by laying on the
substance one or more coatings with a tool contrived as a feeder (which
I call "alimenteur"), or with a brush or other suitable instrument to
convey on to the surface the pharmaceutical composition described in
the preceding paragraph, either as a solution or as a paint or plaster,
according to the thickness of the application required.
(6.) But for economy of time and labour in treating substances in
considerable quantity I pass them through an apparatus which I call
a preparer or "apprêteur," which consists of a receptacle or bath con-
taining the pharmaceutical composition, through or over which the
passage of the substance is directed on drums, or rollers, or other suitable
appliances, acted on by any sufficient motive power and machinery. The

page_text: substance on passing from the "preparer" is conveyed by hand or
by automatic appliances to be divided into suitable portions for use, and
to be parcelled or packed as required.
(7.) Another apparatus of which I make use for the same purpose is
an endless band set in a framework, for which may be substituted any
other suitable kind of channel or support for the substance, which is
laid upon it so as to receive its impregnation or coating above or below
from an automatic feeder or "alimenteur," and with proper appliances
for returning the superfluous pharmaceutical composition to the feeder
or the receptacle for the supply of such feeder.
(8.) The difference of the operation for giving a complete or partial
impregnation or merely one or more superficial coatings in either case
may be regulated with sufficient exactitude by the movement of the
substance and by the supply from the feeder, which may be controlled
at pleasure according to the degree of pharmaceutical preparation to be
given.
(9.) There is an advantage not wholly indispensable in excluding as
far as practicable atmospheric contact after the preparation herein-before
described. To that end the prepared substance in packing is enclosed
in an envelope of any material normally impermeable and at the
same time more or less sufficiently incorrodible or insoluble by impact
of the prepared substance. This envelope will reduce to the minimum,
if not entirely preclude, deterioration from exposure to the atmosphere.
Laminated gutta percha in "thin" sheets, called sometimes gutta percha
cloth or tissue, is suitable for this purpose, and metallic envelopes of
which the metal does not develope or evolve easily or copiously dele-
terious oxide, which might prejudicially affect the application of the
prepared substance if such oxide were absorbed by it. For stationary
use and other exceptional purposes, glass and vitrified argillaceous
casings may be usefully employed, or vitrified coatings may be applied
to the interior of the casings of metallic or other material, or such glass
or vitrified envelopes may be properly protected for portability by
external coverings.