A small roll of lint, cotton, or other material used to plug wounds or absorb fluids; a surgical swab.
Possibly from Latin 'dorsale' or derived from French 'dossal.' Medical texts of the 16th-18th centuries used this term for bandaging and wound-care materials.
A dossil is a humble but historically crucial medical tool—before modern sterile gauze, these handmade rolls of cloth were doctors' primary way of stopping bleeding and preventing infection!
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