Quotation from: Manual of Surgery

Written by: Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson


The more severe forms are attended with a considerable degree of shock,
which is not only more profound, but also lasts much longer than the
shock in an ordinary burn of corresponding severity. The parts at the
point of entrance of the current are charred to a greater or lesser
depth. The eschar is at first dry and crisp, and is surrounded by a zone
of pallor. For the first thirty-six to forty-eight hours there is
comparatively little suffering, but at the end of that time the parts
become exceedingly painful. In a majority of cases, in spite of careful
purification, a slow form of moist gangrene sets in, and the slough
spreads both in area and in depth, until the muscles and often the
large blood vessels and nerves are exposed. A line of demarcation
eventually forms, but the sloughs are exceedingly slow to separate,
taking from three to five times as long as in an ordinary burn, and
during the process of separation there is considerable risk of secondary
haemorrhage from erosion of large vessels.

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