The Harvard Classics Volume 38 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 554 pages of information about The Harvard Classics Volume 38.

The Harvard Classics Volume 38 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 554 pages of information about The Harvard Classics Volume 38.

Soon after, sure enough, there came many gentlemen, with the Emperor’s physician, and his surgeon, and those belonging to M. de Savoie, and six other surgeons of his army, to see M. de Martigues’s wound, and to know of me how I had dressed and treated it.  The Emperor’s physician bade me declare the essential nature of the wound, and what I had done for it.  And all his assistants kept their ears wide open, to know if the wound were or were not mortal.  I commenced my discourse to them, how M. Martigues, looking over the wall to mark those who were sapping it, was shot with an arquebus through the body, and I was called of a sudden to dress him.  I found blood coming from his mouth and from his wounds.  Moreover, he bad a great difficulty of breathing in and out, and air came whistling from the wounds, so that it would have put out a candle; and he said he had a very great stabbing pain where the bullet had entered. ...  I withdrew some scales of bone, and put in each wound a tent with a large head, fastened with a thread, lest on inspiration it should be drawn into the cavity of the chest; which has happened with surgeons, to the detriment of the poor wounded; for being fallen in, you cannot get them out; and then they beget corruption, being foreign bodies.  The tents were anointed with a preparation of yolk of egg, Venice turpentine, and a little oil of roses. ...  I put over the wounds a great plaster of diachylum, wherewith I had mixed oil of roses, and vinegar, to avoid inflammation.  Then I applied great compresses steeped in oxycrate, and bandaged him, not too tight, that he might breathe easily.  Next, I drew five basons of blood from his right arm, considering his youth and his sanguine temperament. ...  Fever took him, soon after he was wounded, with feebleness of the heart. ...  His diet was barley-water, prunes with sugar, at other times broth:  his drink was a ptisane.  He could lie only on his back. ...  What more shall I say? but that my Lord de Martigues never had an hour’s rest after he was wounded. ...  These things considered, Gentlemen, no other prognosis is possible, save that he will die in a few days, to my great grief.

Having finished my discourse, I dressed him as I was accustomed.  When I displayed his wounds, the physicians and surgeons, and other assistants present, knew the truth of what I had said.  The physicians, having felt his pulse and seen that the vital forces were depressed and spent, agreed with me that in a few days he would die.  Then they all went to the Duc de Savoie, and told him M. de Martigues would die in a short time.  He answered them, “Possibly, if he had been well dressed, he might have escaped death.”  Then they all with one voice said he had been very well dressed and cared for altogether, and it could not be better, and it was impossible to cure him, and his wound was of necessity mortal.  Then M. de Savoie was very angry with them, and cried, and asked them again if for certain they all held his case hopeless:  they answered, yes.

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The Harvard Classics Volume 38 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.