Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-10-29
BROKEN BONES.


- ds-a'tiil f-Its5IlI
Singular Cases Of Injury to the Hu-
man Body. -
A writer In the October number of Old
and Neau, has put together some curious
stories about injuries to the human body
especially those which are illustrated in the
army museum at Washington. Explaining
why he entities bis article Broken Bones, ?
be says: "Broken English was the des-
cription once applied by Punch to the vic
tins of railway accident. When sym
pathizers shipped to the Texan revolution
lists carefully packed cannon and shell, the
bills of lading described them as Hollow
Ware. So the meaning of words, however
common in themselves, depend for force
upon their recipient. To one man-to you,
it may be, amiable, but proSaic reader
broken bones may convey nothing; your
neighbor in the country may translate it as
potential fertilizer; to third party it may
suggest much more than these pages can de-
velop.
An exceedingly curious, and, as far as it
indicates the possibilities of nature, instrue-
tive specimen, is the following: A soldier
was admitted to hospital in Baltimore after
one of the Virginia battles, with loss of Wis
ion in the
RIGHT EYE,
Although the external injury to the organ
was not remarkable. He could give no spe-
cial account Of the wound, or of the course
or character of the missile. 1t seemed to
be one of the ordinary minor casualties of
battle that occur, one cannot tell exactly
how. The left eye was slightly prominent,
but its functions were unimpaired The
wound healed speedily, and the man was
permitted to go about the city freely on hos
pital pass. -l,--.. 81.
More than two months subsequently he
died after an illness of few days. An ex-
animation then showed that a conoidal ball
had entered the skull through the right eve.
and was firmly lodged close to and directly
behind the left eye, part of whose bony
casing was somewhat broken and displaced:
and that nature had thrown out new bone
sufficiently to plaster it in its place, and to
nearly entirely close its orifce of entrance.
The immediate cause of death was small
abseess in the brain, where its special COW
ering rested upon the bullet. But this must
have existed only toward the close of life;
and one naturally inquiries '1f bullet can
lie for weeks without occasioning appreeia-
BE mischief or being suspected, why may it
not do 50 for months? Who can prescribe
the limit OF its existence?''
SOME PULLING INCIDENTS
Occasionally happened. One man had his
arm broken below, and again above his ell
bow, by the same bullet; which appears
strange, until il is known that the limb was
bent at the time it was struck. A case
may be vouched for where one bullet made
five openings in the skin and did not break
a bone. In another ball lodged in the up
per part of the right thigh, and, several
months afterward, it was cut out from near
the left knee. A man at Mine Run had two
pOcket-knives shattered and driven into his
thigh. One hundred fragments of the
knives were removed during life, and seven
after death, of which there is little doubt
that they, and not the bullet, were the direct
cause. At Antletam, a soldier received
bullet in his mouth. After the same battle
a soldier crouched over loaded shell,
cracking nuts upon it; his carelessnesS was
followed by speedy explosion and death.
Accidents of this character, due TO igno-
rance or folly, were not unfrequent in the
war. One is described thus: a soldier at
tempted to solve the question whether a
shell would go off by placing it on one side
of a large tree while he, from the other side,
stretched his arm around and struck it with
a hammer, expecting to withdraw his hand
quickly enough to avoid injury. The shell
and the arm both went off. The writer once
saw two infantry soldiers, in front of Rich
mond, pick up and hurl upon the ground,
few feet from them, an unexploded shell, to
decide whether it was Of the ''time" or the
" percussion variety. Raw soldiers are
reckless almost beyond belief.
A LIEUTENANT OF IOsBY's
Command was captured, wounded, near
Harper, s Ferry. His right arm was broken
below the shoulder; but the bullet, which
had not been extracted, could not be found.
When he died, several weeks afterward, the
bullet was discovered lodging in the spine,
one of the bones of which it had badly
broken, below the level of the external
wound, where its presence had not been
suspected by himself or his attendants. 1t
must, of course, have struck his arm when
it was extended in the same line with the
back, and have followed its long axis.
When Sedwick advanced upon Freder-
icksburg in May, 1868, one of his men fell
without experiencing pain; ard it was found
that his thigh was broken. He was admit
ted to hospital in Washington five days af-
WHEN THERE WAS NO EXTERNAL WOUND
of the thigh, and it was presumed that the
injury came from a spent round shot. He
died in about six weeks, and the thigh bone
was found broken and splintered in the
middle with a cOnoidal bullet, itself partly
split, lodged. A small wound that had long
been closed, was found near the knee, and
the course of the bah had been so tortuous
that it had collapsed upon itself, and no
discharge had indicated the track of en-
trance.