The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-01 00:00:00

the extending emphysema, the amphoric breathing,
which could be plainly heard by the ear applied to
the chest, and his state of alarming collapse,
gave what must be considered unequivocal
proof of a wound of the lung. On the
other hand, the fact that in the course of a few
hours the bloody sputa lessened in quantity and fre-
quency, and that the dyspncea although urgent was
not excessive, gave reason to hope that the lesion
of the lung was not of a very severe character. A
right line drawn from the wound in the back to the
place of lodgment of the ball would pass through
the thickest part of the left lung and the seat of the
largest pulmonary vessels, possibly also through the
important vessels about the root of the heart. Now,
although it is conceivable that the bullet took this
direct course, and yet fortunately avoided the ex-
tensive injury which might seem almost inevitable,
it is easier to imagine either that it skirted the wall
of the chest internally, or that the lung, by offering
little or no resistance, allowing the bullet to slip
over its surface generally without traversing it. In
either case, however, there seems little doubt that a
portion—probably a small one—of the lung was
transfixed. The amount of shock was excessive ;

the pulse was so enfeebled as to be at times inap-
preciable, and for an hour or two it was doubtful
whether the patient would not rapidly sink and die.
Dr. Westmacott, in consultation with several volun-

teer surgeons who were present, decided, and we
think with proper judgment, upon leaving the ball
alone. The presence of the bullet in the front wall
of the chest had nothing to do with the symptoms
under which the patient seemed likely to succumb,
and its removal could not, at that time at least, im-

prove his condition. If it were so superficially
placed as to be then got at readily, such an operation
could be undertaken at a future time, supposing the
man lived, with much less risk of injury to him.
If, on the other hand, there was any difficulty to be
apprehended in its withdrawal, a period of such
momentary peril to his life was an inappropriate
one in which to enter upon the task. The times
have gone by in which some mysterious influence
and power of harm used to be attributed to the
presence of a bullet in the body, and when
army surgeons would risk everything, including the
life of their patient, to an effort for its removal.
(Some remarks in a letter recently published in
the Times by Staff-surgeon Wyatt, more than in-
sinuating that the non-removal of the bullet would
jeopardize the patient's recovery in the sequel, were
unprofessional and totally uncalled for. Mr. Wyatt
is entitled to have an opinion of his own, whatever
it may be worth, bat he is only degrading himself
in the estimation of his professional brethren when
he obtrudes that opinion upon the public in an
offensive letter.) The patient was placed upon the
injured side to allow of the free play of the sound
lung, while ice and brandy were administered to
him. When the most pressing period of collapse
had passed over, chloroform was inhaled with some
relief to the agonizing pain in the chest, of which
he constantly complained. On the following day
he was able to take some beef-tea in addition to
other restoratives. The expectoration of blood
gradually lessened and come vomiting occurred.
His breathing was 44 to 48, and his pulse ranged
from 120 to 140 in the minute. On the next day he
coughed up some black coagula. The urine being
retained, with great spasm of the urethra the
catheter was introduced twice. The patient
still remains at Wimbledon, and, by our last
accounts, no unfavourable symptoms had super-
vened. Although the risk of fatal tonmorrhage
may now be said to have ceased, he has still, in all
probability, to go through the trying ordeal of
localized or general pneumonia with empyrema ;
and it need scarcely be said that his condition is a
very precarious one, although far from hopeless.
On Wednesday morning effusion of blood was found
to have taken place into the left side of the thorax,
impeding the respiration, and pushing the heart to
the right side. This effusion has not apparently
increased since Wednesday, and the patient is
tolerably free from pain.
THE "LONDON REVIEW" ON BATHING.—Mr D.
Urquhart, the champion of the eastern mode of
bathing, whose writings upon the subject induced
an Irish pbysiciai, Dr. Barter, of Blarney, to erect
the first Turkish bath ever seen in Christian Europe,
gives an amusing account of the comments made by
a Turkish lieutenant of a man-of-war who, whilst
smoking, was watching the ablutions of an officer
of a British man-efewar, which lay near. "Allah
be praised !" he said, taking the amber from his
mouth ; " that poor devil wishes to be clean, if he
only knew bow. See—how he dabbles, and throws
back upon his face and neck the foul, thick, greasy,
nasty, nasty puddle. And now he rubs down and
presses into skin all that filth with a damp towel,
and feels quite satisfied that he is washed and clean.
Allah be praised l" But the Turkish bath is only a
form or a copy of the old Roman and Grecian hot-
air bath, and, how charming soever may be its
cleansing and restorative powers, the thought of it
is by no means agreeable or refreshing in these
scorching days of summer. Far more tempting are
the cold plash of the ocean brine, and that peculiarly
fresh and invigorating odour which comes from the
open sea. Even as we sit broiling and working,
with the yellow atmosphere of London stretching
away over our field of vision, we fancy a faint scent
of the sea breeze comes in at the open window, and
intimates that a delightful " header" may be within
the range of eoseibility. Unless cleanliness be ac-
cepted as a very modern handmaiden of godliness,
how are we to judge of the piety of our forefathers ?
The luxury of the heathen Romans in their baths
and modes of bathing was so offensive and repugnant
to Christian morality, propriety, and decency, that
studied iieglect of the person became a distinguish-
ing characteristic of those early Christians who set
themselves most zealously in pious opposition to
Pagan customs. And when we remember that
the ancient name of a public bath has come
down to our own times as a synonym for a place
of the most infamous resort, we shall cease
to wonder at the long and stern contest which
Christianity has been forced to wage against a sys-
tem of deep demoralisation fostered under the sem-
blance of cleanliness, and at the strange tales of the
boastful negligence of washing by even eminent and
learned Churchmen, laymen, and ladies of the early
awl the middle ages. The plain truth is, that with
the ancient Romans bathing was resorted to, not
for ablution, but for luxury. Those masters of the
world, when they abandoned the grim severity of
the'..r republican manners, and adopted the sensual.
ism and effeminacy of the Lydians and Sybarites,
spent a large part of their time in baths, which
they adorned with the most profuse splendour,
making them shine with costly marbles and pre-
cious stones, with silver and with gold. Here they
would sit for hours, reading, conversing, receiving
fiiends, and killing time in a hundred ways of which
the least objectionable was mere indolence. We
have but to read Juvenal to know the corrupt uses
to which the system was turned; and there can be
no doubt that the vicious indulgences which cloaked
themselves under a pretext of salubrity had much
to do with the decay and ruin of the vast Roman
empire. The strong, hardy, and withal dirty North.
men seem to have extinguished the system of hot
bathing in which Imperial Rome had so long re-
velled ; but for some reason or other it survived in
the Eastern Empire—probably because that part of
Europe was less influenced than the West by the
example,of barbarian manners. When the Turks
took Constantinople in the fifteenth century, they
were as rough, unkempt, and unwashed as any Goth
or Hun that ever marched under Alarie or Attila;
but they were not slow in adopting the system of
bathing which they found in full existence among
tue people tney Lea eisequered, and it mutt be added
that they were equally quick in assimilating those
vices which the supple Greek had preserved
through all the changes of government and
religion. The Turks became externally clean, and
internally, in many cases, foul enough. The exces-
sive stress which their faith lays upon personal
ablutions made them the more ready to adopt a
system which they found made to their hands ; and
it has thus come to pass that the luxury of bathing
has never quitted the shores of the Bosphorus from
the days when the rude Thracian first softened his
primeval manners to the existing moment.
THE " EXAMINER " ON THE AMERICAN WAR.—
Here is the old see-saw, the ups and down, the
tides of ebb and flow of fortune of war. Each side
has its regular tarn of series of successes, which are
followed by a series of disasters. A few weeks ago
Richmond and Petersburg were thought to be in
the grasp of Grant, but presently Washington and
Baltimore were much more seriously threatened by
the Southerns. It turned oat, however, only a
runaway knock. The Confederates had something
better to do than to capture a capital they could not
hold, and accordingly they sacked the country, and
carried off a large booty for the supply of all their
wants. They went with their hands empty and
returned with them full, having given the Federals
a lesson of insecurity. There was, probably, a
bird in the hand worth two in the bush, and the
capture of Washington was not quite so certain,
nor the value of the capture, as the value of the
booty to be carried off. We expect no decisive
results from the tide of Southern fortune. We ex-
pect only the turn of the tide, and the turn and
turn again, at least fur many a weary, waste.
ful, and bloody day,
exhaus-
tion which must be the euthacasia of this detestable f
struggle are e The best signs of the
--e shameful shifts to which the
Federals have recourse to enlist foreigners. It must
be their poverty in men,
consents to expedients EO scoundrelly, as kidnap-
ping, drugging, and and not their will, that
deceiving by false pretences.
Lord Edward Howard has rendered a most
timely and valuable service in exposing the
vile tricks by which poor follows are tree
panned into the Federal service, Some are actually
stolen to nerve in the war whose boast is anti-sla_