Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2335

JOSE TRUETA RASPALL (b. 1897) Treatment of war wounds and fractures, with special reference to the closed method as used in the war in Spain. Hamish Hamilton Medical Books 1939 xiii, 146 pp., illus. 18.6 cm.

Trueta wrote this small manual during the Spanish Civil War when he was director of the Department of Surgery at the General Hospital of Catalonia in Barcelona. The book was initially prepared in Spanish and is here enlarged and translated into English. It was first published in September, 1939, and this is the second impression of November, 1939. Trueta used the closed method of treating compound fractures which consisted of reducing the fracture, cleaning the wound, packing it with Vaseline-impregnated gauze, and immobilizing the limb in a plaster cast. The closed method was widely used by the Allied Forces early in World War II but was replaced by somewhat simpler techniques as antibiotics were introduced into use for the control of infection.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 5632; Waller 9700a (1942 ed.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.