"Verily I confess, I have formerly used to stanch the bleeding after amputation by another manner where of I am ashamed and aggrieved. But what should I do? I had observed my masters whose methods I intended to follow and always to do the like...
About these things cannot be spoken or thought upon without great horror, much less acted upon. For this kind of remedy could not but bring great and tormenting pain to the patient...
Wherefore I must earnestly entreat all Chirurgions to leave this old and too cruel way of healing and embrace this new way; which I learned not from my masters, nor of any other. Only I have read it in Galen, that there was no speedier remedy for stanching the flux of blood than to bind the vessels."
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