The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-07-25
NUMBER Is.
Gun.Shot Wounds.
TThe Atheneum.

1t appears that the pain Immediately
produced by the passage of bullet is
usually slight. In some cases it is not
felt at the entrance wound, but only at
that of exit. " A private of the Seventh
Fusiliers was in face of the enemy at
Ipkerman. A bullet pierced the lower
way out behind between the upper angle
of the scapula and the spine. An officer
of the Second Battalion Rife Brigade
was behind him. No idea of having
been shot entered the private's mind. He
was not even aware of the wound he
had received in front, but his sensations
led him to suppose that the officer be-
hind had pricked him with the point of
his sword in the back. He turned
round instantly to learn what this was
done for, and was in time to see the
officer in the act of falling. The bullet
which had just passed through his own
neck had struck the officer in the head
and killed him." Serious and even fatal
injuries have not unfrequently been
caused by the blow of a cannon-ball,
which has grazed the body without
breaking the skin. 1t was the custom
formerly to attribute such contusions to
the "wind of the shot" Various
theories were framed to account for this
result, by the condensation of the air
surrounding the missile or the vacuum
which followed in its track, or by the
electricity which it was supposed to
generate. "All these hypothesis are
now abandoned by m litary surgeons,
though a strong belief in them still
exists in the minds of many combatant
officers" 1t is certain that cannon
ball may go quite close to the body
without causing it any harm. Thus, at
Bayonne, a thirty-two-pounder shot
passed between the outstretched thighs
of an artillery officer at the time he was
sighting a gun, and he sustained no
damage except the loss of the tail of his
uniform coat. The result of the i'm
provement of firearms has been to di-
minish considerably the chances of
lodgment of bullets in the body. Out
of seven hundred and twenty-seven
gun-shot wounds observed in the
hospital at Carlsruhe during the
Franco-German war it was calculated
that the bullets had lodged in only
eighteen per cent. Such wounds, how
ever, are not less dangerous, inasmuch
as portions of the clothing and accoun-
terments usually remain in the track of
the bullet, as we'll as splinters of bone,
which act as injuriously as foreign
bodies. 1t is, therefore, very necessary
that careful examination should be
made as soon as possible, SO that such
sources of irritation may be removed.
Occasionally the patient himself may
be able to throw some light upon the
matter, and render further investigation
superfuous. Witness the story of a
surgeon, "who after long exploration OF
a gun-shot wound and much torture OF
his patient, happening to remark that he
must give up further search for the
bullet, was addressed with much bitter.
ness by the wounded man in the follow
ing terms: Is that what you have beer
doing all this time? Why didn't yor
ask me about it? have got the buller
in my pocket" The mode of dressing
gun-shot injuries has undergone many
changes. At one time it was thought
that there was peculiar poisonous in
fuence exercised by the missile upor
the surrounding tissues and the constitu
ton of the sufferer. Although Ambrost
Pare in 1915 published treatise to re
fute this error, we find traces of the be
lief still existing even in. the presen
century. Hence arose the cruel practic,
of pouring boiling oil into the wound II
burn out the venomous substance.