CAUTERY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Cautery

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noun

Cautery n. (pl. cauteries)

(Med.) A burning or searing, as of morbid flesh, with a hot iron, or by application of a caustic that will burn, corrode, or destroy animal tissue.

The iron of other agent in cauterizing.

Actual cautery, a substance or agent (as a hot iron) which cauterizes or sears by actual heat; or the burning so effected.

Potential cautery, a substance which cauterizes by chemical action; as, lunar caustic; also, the cauterizing produced by such substance.

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Etymology of 'Cautery'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cautery" Quotes from Famous Books

... amputated, either with a red-hot knife or a pair of red-hot shears (Kudrin trial, Moscow, 1871; testimony of physicians and examination of the accused) which served the double purpose of checking haemorrhage, as would a thermo-cautery, and avoiding infection. Another method consisted in searing the orifice of the vagina so that the scar tissue would contract it in such a manner as to effectually prevent the entrance ...

— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... first applications that he attempted related to the use of electricity in surgery, a wonderfully fecund branch, but one whose importance was scarcely suspected, notwithstanding the results already obtained through the application of the insufflation pile to galvano-cautery. What the surgeon needed was to see plainly into the cavities of the human body. Trouve found a means of lighting these up with lamps whose illuminating power was fitted for that sort of exploration. This ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... than one of these little furious curs that are so rife, and run devious, biting each manly leg, and laying its wearer low, but for me and my learned brethren, who still stay the mischief with knife and cautery." ...

— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... I reached home I was hoarse, and not smiling: before night I had dyspnoca and laryngeal stridor. I at once telegraphed to London for Morgan, and, between him and Johnson, they have been opening my trachea, and burning my inside with chromic acid and the galvanic cautery. The difficulty as to breathing has subsided, and it is wonderful how little I suffer: but I am much too old a hand not to know what's what: the bronchi are involved—too far involved—and as a matter of absolute fact, there isn't any hope. Morgan is still, I believe, ...

— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel