Wound care in regency England
Hello! I was just wondering if anyone would happen to know anything about wound care towards the end of the regency period, round about 1820. I have two characters, both medical students at Oxford University (so they have some medical training/knowledge), one of whom has received a deep cut on the chest from a sharp ring in a fight - the kind that would require stiches today. What I'm trying to work out is how they would go about treating that sort of thing.
From my Google research so far I've found that proper sterilization was developed rather later, around the 1880s. So, with the stitches I'm mostly wondering whether they would know to boil the needle/scissors etc., and could they use alcohol to clean the wound? Leeches? I've found quite a lot about medicine in general during the regency period online but I'm struggling a bit to find anything that seems relevant for this exact situation. Much of what I've found so far focuses either on the later Victorian era or the 18th century.
Thank you very much in advance!
From my Google research so far I've found that proper sterilization was developed rather later, around the 1880s. So, with the stitches I'm mostly wondering whether they would know to boil the needle/scissors etc., and could they use alcohol to clean the wound? Leeches? I've found quite a lot about medicine in general during the regency period online but I'm struggling a bit to find anything that seems relevant for this exact situation. Much of what I've found so far focuses either on the later Victorian era or the 18th century.
Thank you very much in advance!