Pepys relates how he met a seaman returning from fighting the Dutch with his eye-socket "stopped with oakum," and as late at least as the Battle of Trafalgar it was customary, in amputations, to treat the bleeding stump with boiling pitch as a cauterant.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore] Reference

This is usually of traumatic or cauterant origin.    From Wordnik.com.  [Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery] Reference