Title
Septic fingers
Subject
Public Health
Description
An audio clip describing the treatment for septic fingers before the introduction of penicillin.
Source
Public Health compilation on https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p15407coll1/id/547/rec/5
Publisher
EMOHA
Rights
You may use this item in accordance with the licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Duration
1 min 11 sec
Transcription
The department in the morning would be attended by repeated tenants of people with septic hands, septic fingers and what have you. And there they would spend about half an hour with their hand in a bowl of water which had got an antiseptic in. And there were some terrible hands of fingers two and three, with, with pus being got out of them, and their patients will be attending probably for months and months to get the the soaking and the antiseptic and the poultice dressing. No antibiotics at that particular time, so a long haul...
Did they have sulphonamides in those days?
I know there was one that was, made everything red. I mean, the urine used to come out red and everything, you know, they weren't red themselves, no, it's kind of a colour thing with it.
During my duties as the casualty clerk and they're many are a young lad coming in one day and he got the end of his finger chopped off, so I asked him how he had done this and he said he caught it in the sausage machine, and I said, oh, good heavens, I said, what did you do with all the meat going through? Oh, he said, it just went on, he said, I mean, you don't stop the sausage machine because you chop the end of your finger off.
Did they have sulphonamides in those days?
I know there was one that was, made everything red. I mean, the urine used to come out red and everything, you know, they weren't red themselves, no, it's kind of a colour thing with it.
During my duties as the casualty clerk and they're many are a young lad coming in one day and he got the end of his finger chopped off, so I asked him how he had done this and he said he caught it in the sausage machine, and I said, oh, good heavens, I said, what did you do with all the meat going through? Oh, he said, it just went on, he said, I mean, you don't stop the sausage machine because you chop the end of your finger off.
Interviewer
Unknown
Interviewee
Unknown
Location
Unknown
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