Animal Bites
- Animal Bites Overview
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Animal Bites Overview
Many different types of animals ranging from dogs and cats to hamsters, raccoons, ferrets, and squirrels can bite adults and children. Many times, bites are from the family pet.
Next: Animal Bites Causes »
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Animal Bites
Wound Care Introduction
A wound is a break in the skin (the outer layer of skin is called the epidermis). Wounds are usually caused by cuts or scrapes. Different kinds of wounds may be treated differently from one another, depending upon how they happened and how serious they are.
Healing is a response to the injury that sets into motion a sequence of events. With the exception of bone, all tissues heal with some scarring. The object of proper care is to minimize the possibility of infection and scarring.
There are basically 4 phases to the healing process:
- Inflammatory phase: The inflammatory phase begins with the injury itself. Here you have bleeding, immediate narrowing of the blood vessels, clot formation, and release of various chemical substances into the wound that will begin the healing process. Specialized cells clear the wound of debris over the course of several days.
- Proliferative phase: Next is the proliferat...
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Animal Bites »
Because many animal bites are never reported, determining the exact incidence of animal bite wounds in the United States, let alone the world, is difficult.
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