are driven in upon the membrane, I mean the upper and lower, the wound,
if treated in the same way, will very soon get well, and the depressed
bones will quickly rise up.

PART 18

The bones of children are thinner and softer, for this reason, that
they contain more blood [than those of adults]; and they are porous
and spongy, and neither dense nor hard. And when wounded to a similar
or inferior degree by weapons of the same or even of an inferior power,
the bone of a young person more readily and quickly suppurates, and
that in less time than the bone of an older person; and in accidents,
which are to prove fatal, the younger person will die sooner than
the elder. But if the bone is laid bare of flesh, one must attend
and try to find out, what even is not obvious to the sight, and discover
whether the bone be broken and contused, or only contused; and if,
when there is an indentation in the bone, whether contusion, or fracture,
or both be joined to it; and if the bone has sustained any of these
injuries, we must give issue to the blood by perforating the bone
with a small trepan, observing the greatest precautions, for the bone
of young persons is thinner and more superficial than that of elder
persons.

PART 19

When a person has sustained a mortal wound on the head, which cannot
be cured, nor his life preserved, you may form an opinion of his approaching
dissolution, and foretell what is to happen from the following symptoms
which such a person experiences. When a bone is broken, or cleft,
or contused, or otherwise injured, and when by mistake it has not
been discovered, and neither the raspatory nor trepan has been applied
as required, but the case has been neglected as if the bone were sound,
fever will generally come on if in winter, and in summer the fever
usually seizes after seven days. And when this happens, the wound
loses its color, and the inflammation dies in it; and it becomes glutinous,
and appears like a pickle, being of a tawny and somewhat livid color;
and the bone then begins to sphacelate, and turns black where it was
white before, and at last becomes pale and blanched. But when suppuration
is fairly established in it, small blisters form on the tongue and
he dies delirious. And, for the most part, convulsions seize the other
side of the body; for, if the wound be situated on the left side,
the convulsions will seize the right side of the body; or if the wound
be on the right side of the head, the convulsion attacks the left
side of the body. And some become apoplectic. And thus they die before
the end of seven days, if in summer; and before fourteen, if in winter.
And these symptoms indicate, in the same manner, whether the wound
be older or more recent. But if you perceive that fever is coming
on, and that any of these symptoms accompany it, you must not put
off, but having sawed the bone to the membrane (meninx), or scraped
it with a raspatory (and it is then easily sawed or scraped), you
must apply the other treatment as may seem proper, attention being
paid to circumstances.

PART 20

When in any wound of the head, whether the man has been trepanned
or not, but the bone has been laid bare, a red and erysipelatous swelling
supervenes in the face, and in both eyes, or in either of them, and
if the swelling be painful to the touch, and if fever and rigor come
on, and if the wound look well, whether as regards the flesh or the
bone, and if the parts surrounding the wound be well, except the swelling
in the face, and if the swelling be not connected with any error in
the regimen, you must purge the bowels in such a case with a medicine
which will evacuate bile; and when thus purged the fever goes off,