The Connection of Diphtheria with Local Unsanitary Conditions
Authors: W. N. Thursfield
Journal: BMJ (1873)

THE BRITISH MEDICAL 7OUrA-Al.. 65S well corked bottle, for a long time.It is, in fact, a kind of tbick varnish.To make the resin.cloth,as I term it, for the sake of distin- puishing it from the cere-cloth dressing for wounds, which I described in a paper read at the Leeds meeting of the British Medical Association in 1869, it is needful to select a very thin, cheap, porous calico, or calico-muslin, known in the trade as " mulls", which costs at wholesale price about four sbillings per piece of twenty yards.This, divided into strips, each about nine mches wide and six yards long, is reduced to a conirenient form for general use.The calico should be unbleached and free from stiffening, and each of the strips should be carefuUy folded up, so as just to lie flatly in the press, as I am about to explain.An ordinary square tincture press may be used to press the cloth, or such a press as is sold for copying letters, to which a tin box has been adapted, so that the plates of the press can work in it; and into this box the folded calico is placed, the solution being poured over each successive layer, so as to wet perfectly every part of it.There should be an aperture at the bottom of the box, with a tap by which the superfluous fluid can be removed, collected, and used a second time.The press being brought into action, the pile of calico should be squeezed as dry as possible, all the fluid drained off, the resin-cloth taken out, laid over a few lines of string in a warm room with a good ventilation; and in an hour or two, when all traces of smell of the methylated spirit have departed, the cloth may be rolled up and kept in tin cases ready for use.It is difficult for me to slate the exact cost of resin-cloth made by this process, for I have not yet bought the materials for its preparation at such prnces as could be had if it were to be manufactured in large quantities; but, allowing for some slight reduction, where six or eight twenty-yard pieces of calico are bought at a time, and the solution made by the gallon, I find it comes to a fraction less than threepence per yard of average width of 44 inches.In using it as a dressing for wounds, I deal with it precisely as I would do with Mlr.Lister's antiseptic gauze, for which it must be taken as a cheap and ready substitute.I generally apply ten folds of it over the face of a wound, as in an amputation, and perhaps six folds higher up the limb for some distance, and I cover it with the macintosh hat-lining, so as to distribute the serous discharges through the breadth of the resin-cloth thus covered.I have never found it to irritate the skin in any degree beyond what the oiled silk (protective), liberally used, could control; except once, when, in the hurry of preparing the resin-cloth, I had neglected to dry it thoroughly, and it was applied, still moist with the methylated spirit, the naphtha in it seeming to be the chief cause of the skin-irritation.But if this precaution be observed, I believe this resin-cloth will be found a very useful addendum to our means of treating wounds and abscesses on antiseptic principles.