Various Surgical Uses of Vulcanized India-Rubber.—Vulcanized
caoutchouc has now become very common in the arts, and is likewise
used in surgery. A systematic and extensive application of this sub-
stance has lately been made at Paris, for surgical purposes; and Dr.
Gariel presented to the Surgical Society of that capital, on the 19th of
September last, a series of apparatuses, made of vulcanized caoutchouc,
tor traction, compression, confinement, dilatation, suction, &c. Dr.
Gariel prepares the substance by dipping the caoutchouc into a saline
bath, and thereby renders the India-rubber perfectly and regularly elas-
tic, gives to it an immense force of cohesion, prevents fatty bodies or the
most energetical chemical agents (nitrate of silver, nitric, sulphuric, and
muriatic acids, &c.,) from acting upon it, and causes it to preserve its
elasticity at extreme temperatures. It should be remembered that ordi-
nary caoutchouc possesses none of the above-named properties. One
peculiarity pervades the numerous kinds of apparatuses which Dr. Gariel
laid before the Society, and that is, a very ingeniously-contrived mode of
insufflating various tubes, when placed upon, or introduced into, the
body, giving them a greater diameter, and increasing their power of
pressure at will. We may mention a tube used for arresting epistaxis,
which will plug the posterior nares by insufflating it. Pessaries and a
izreat number of variously shaped cushions, intended for many different
surgical uses are also made to change their size at will, by filling them
more or less with air. The Society expressed its highest approval of
Giese applications of vulcanized caoutchouc.—Lancet, Dec, 1, 1848,
/). 579.