Arizona weekly citizen., 1890-06-28
A STRIKING NARRATIVE.
How tho Wind of a Cannon Bah Ca
 Wound and Bruise.

wound anu DruiBc.
 Sir Robert Rawlinson, K. c. B., sends us the following striking narrative:
 ''On the morning of the 10th of June, 1855, was riding in company with some military officers on their way to the trenches before Sebastopol, and enter ing the ravine known as The Valley of the Shadow of Death" when in the act of turning round to go back was swept down with my horse by 42-pound Rus sian steel shot. The shot passed in front of me, from left to right, cutting the reins out off left hand and passing through the thin jacket under my arm. had in my right-hand trousers pocket a small leather purse with steel rim to 1t and a little silver in it. This purse bruised the strong cloth of the pocket and my flannel shirt, as also the crest of the pelvis. My own impression was that the shot had struck me full in the aDdo- men, and that 1 was cut in two. ] tainted and my wound bled cOpiOusly, and 1 was taken to the nearest tenn pOrary hospital. Now, as to the wind of this shot. It could have had nothing to do with my wound. As ex- plained, the shot traversed across the abdomen and met with nothing solid but the purse and money in my pocket. and the contact was sufficient to break the strong cloth of the pocket under the purse-not above it-the flannel shirt and the flesh and bone of the pelvis. And remember, so slight must have been the touch of the shot on my clothes that they were not abraded or marked; the thin summer coat being perforated, but the outer edge not broken. How could the wind perform this freak? The full front force of this shot, of only 1, 900 feet per second, would have a striking power of about 40, 900 pounds, but, can noning on me in front, the force or blow might be only equal to a severe blow by a man striking below the belt. If this shot had passed over any more solid DOT ton of the body, as the head or the back, sudden death would have been the result; but as it barely touched the clothes upon the abdomen the effect was lessened. At all events, I was severely wounded by forty-two pound round shot. and most certainly not by the wind of it; and by reason of the grand surgery of the lato Sir James Ferguson l am low alive to tell the tale."
 A medical correspondent quotes Prof. Sir T. Longmore upoA the matter thus: The true explanation O, the appearances presented in those cases which were formerly called wind contusions" ap- pears to rest in the peculiar direction or degree of obliquity with which the missile has happened to impinge against the yielding and elastic skin, together with the position of the internal organs injured between this missile and other hard substances in their neighborhood. The surface itself is not directly torn or cut into because the impact of the pro- . ctile has not been sufficiently direct to | fleet an opening; but the parts beneath are crushed by the pressure to which they have been subjectel between the combined influence of the weight and momentum of the shot on one side and some har1 resisting substance on the other. There are no cases 1 have seen or read Of, our correspondent adds, that can not be satisfactorily explained on the theory given above.-Pall Mall Gazette.