Epidemiological aspect of trauma patients admitted to Siriraj Hospital, 1988.

There were 33,256 new patients being treated for various injuries in the Devision of Traumatology, Department of Surgery, Siriraj Hospital in 1988. The males to females ratio was 2:1. The ages ranged from seven days to ninety-nine years, with the most frequent range encountered between 21-30 years (30.30%). The most common injuries was household accident (45.36%) followed by traffic accident (29.82%). The patients with traffic accidents and more severe injury than the household ones. Over one-half of the traffic injuries (63.03%) were from motorcycle. Among patients with severe injuries, 131 died on arrival at the emergency room, 1,512 were admitted for further treatment while 325 being transferred to other hospitals due to limited number of beds. Those with traffic accidents occupied almost one-half of the admission beds.

The effect of one percent centella asiatica cream on chronic ulcers.

It has been known to the Chinese for a long time that Centella asiatica (L.) Urban, the umbelliferous pennywort, possesses a property that lessens the internal inflammatory process. The use of crushed leaves to treat ulcers is also known in India and Pakistan. At Mahidol University, pure triterpene acids and glycosides are extracted from dried leaves. One percent of this extract in cream base was used in this experimental modality. Twenty-two patients with chronic infected ulcer measuring 1-12 cm in width, 1-19 cm in length and 0.5-3.7 cm in depth, were treated with the 1% extracted alkaloids cream. The size of the ulcers were measured and recorded at the beginning of the experiment and one, two and three weeks later. It was observed that the size of the ulcers decreased at an average rate of 24 percent of the original size in the first week, 37 percent at the second week and 47 percent at the end of the third week, It is noted that the healing rate of the depth is faster than the other two dimensions by aboout 20 percent. At the end of the experiment, seventeen out of twenty-two ulcer patients were completely healed, either by epithelialization or skin grafting. The remaining five ulcer patients did not heal completely but their ulcer size were much decreased. A variety of bacteria was recovered from the wounds throughout the experiment and it seemed that they did not play any important role in the healing of the wounds.