[ad. L. cautērium branding-iron, cautery, ad. Gr. καυτήριον branding-iron: see CAUTER.]
1. A heated metaīlic instrument used for burning or searing organic tissue; also a caustic drug or medicine for the same purpose. The former is called an actual, the latter a potential, cautery.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., Ulcers, 141. Let the bone be bored through, with a quadrate pointed cauterie.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 312/1. A little knobbe or tumor, which then with a glowing siluer Cauterye we must Cauterise.
1656. Ridgley, Pract. Physic, 326. Let the Chirurgion hold a great actual Cautery in his hand.
1689. Moyle, Sea Chyrurg., II. i. 26. Apply Buttons armed with … your Potential Cautry.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xlvi. Bramwell prescribed the actual cautery, and put the poker in the fire.
1878. Tennyson, Q. Mary, III. iv. 123. The mad bite Must have the cautery.
1881. Syd. Soc. Lex., s.v., Practically the term cautery is confined to the actual; a heated metallic instrument.
2. The operation of cauterizing, the application of a cauterizing agent. [cf. abst. sbs. in -ERY.]
1575. Turberv., Falconrie, 282. Cawterie to be bestowed upon hawkes.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 333. The potential cautery is done by applying unto the grieved place some medicine corrosive, putrifactive, or caustick.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. iv. III. (1676), 238/1. Cauteries or searings with hot yrons.
1758. J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg. (1771), 19. To consume the Excrescence … both by Potential and Actual Cautery.
1861. Reade, Cloister & H., I. 343. To lay out blood and money, in flebotomy and cautery.
fig. a. 1834. Coleridge, Sancti Dominici Pallium, 25.
| Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex’s bounds, | |
| With actual cautery staunch’d the Church’s wounds! |
1853. Cdl. Wiseman, Ess., III. 5. To apply this actual cautery to the body of the Spanish Church.
† 3. An eschar made by cauterizing. [So Gr.]
1651. N. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 239. Cauteries or permanent wounds are thought to be … related to it.
