The medical process of burning or searing tissue with heat or chemicals to remove dead flesh, stop bleeding, or sterilize a wound.
From cauterize + -ation suffix. British spelling of cauterization. Comes from Latin cauterium (branding iron) and Greek kauter (burning).
Cauterisation appears in medical texts from the 1500s and was considered a mark of a skilled surgeon—you had to burn quickly and deeply enough to stop the bleeding but not so deep you damaged healthy tissue.
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