[p. 156]be dried, for thus the wound will most speedily become whole,
when flesh devoid of humors grows up, and thus there will be no fungous
flesh in the sore. The same thing applies to the membrane which surrounds
the brain: for when, by sawing the bone, and removing it from the
meninx, you lay the latter bare, you must make it clean and dry as
quickly as possible, lest being in a moist state for a considerable
time, it become soaked therewith and swelled; for when these things
occur, there is danger of its mortifying.
Part 16
A piece of bone that must separate from the rest of the bone, in consequence
of a wound in the head, either from the indentation (hedra) of a blow
in the bone, or from the bone being otherwise denuded for a long time,
separates mostly by becoming exsanguous. For the bone becomes dried
up and loses its blood by time and a multiplicity of medicines which
are used; and the separation will take place most quickly, if one
having cleaned the wound as quickly as possible will next dry it,
and the piece of bone, whether larger or smaller. For a piece of bone
which is quickly dried and converted, as it were, into a shell, is
most readily separated from the rest of the bone which retains its
blood and vitality; for, the part having become exsanguous and dry,
more readily drops off from that which retains its blood and is alive.
Part 17
Such pieces of bone as are depressed from their natural position,
either being broken off or chopped off to a considerable extent, are
attended with less danger, provided the membrane be safe; and bones
which are broken by numerous and broader fractures are still less
dangerous and more easily extracted. And you must not trepan any of
them, nor run any risks in attempting to extract the pieces of bone,
until they rise up of their own accord, upon the subsidence of the
swelling. They rise up when the flesh (granulations) grows below,
and it grows from the diploe of the bone, and from the sound portion,
provided the upper table alone be in a state of necrosis. And the
flesh will shoot up and grow below the more quickly, and the pieces
of bone ascend, if one will get the wound to suppurate and make it
clean as quickly as possible. And when both the tables of the
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