Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 13. (Budapest, 1959)

Dr. I. CSILLAG and Dr. H. JELLINEK: From primitive Haemostatic Methods to Modern Vascular Surgery

centres and medical schools were developing. Curing, on the other hand, took the popular form here and there. They pressed vegetable stuffs into the bleeding wound and arrested haemorrhage this way. Homer writes: "... Patroclus cut the forky steel away. Then in his hand a bitter root he bruised, The wound he washed, the styptic juice infused; The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow, The wound to torture, and the blood to flow." (Pope's Iliad of Homer, Book XL, last lines. John Lane Company, 1907, New York) And in another variation of translation: "... and with his knife he cut forth The rankling point; with tepid lotion, next, He cleansed the gore, and with a bitter root Bruised small between his palms, sprinkled the wound. At once, the anodyne his pains assuaged, The wound was dried within, and the blood ceas'd." (Homer's Iliad, transi, by W. Cowper, London, 1791.) In the times of Hyppocrates (cd. 460. B. C.) the same incorect views ruled on the arterial and venous system which the Grecians may have adopted from the Egyptians. They francied that there was air in the left heart and blood in the right one. The bleeding wounds were seared in this time with red-hot iron. Tending and Treatment of Wounds Caused by Vascular Trauma: Vascular Ligation It was the medical school of Alexandria which found aut that in controlling haemorrhages the vessel must be ligated and not the bleeding wound. With the conquests of Alexander the Great namely, all the achievements of Grecian culture kept spreading and the enormous library here favoured the advance of medical science. Arterial ligation brought the possibility of performing complicated interventions since the risk of mortal hae-