The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-21

said, "is that the probe in all its forms
has gone out of use. No more search
ing blindly in a mans body for the
| bullet, no more danger of blood pois-
oning from the introduction into the
! wound of instruments of search. Inc
Horoscope tells US instantly where
the projectile has imbedded itself. and
we have only to cut it out as If II were
there before our eyes. The ingenious
electric probe and all similar devices
have seen their day. In all future pat
ties experts in skiagraphy Will be at
tached of necessity to the medical
corps, and the work of the surgeons
will be materially assisted by their
precise indications. We took out bull
! lets by the pint on board the Relief,
and almost without exception they
were located by the X-rays."
/ The surgeon exhibited the apparatus
/ for producing the X-rays and the
operating table where the skiagraohS
+ are made. These stand amidships in
an open space ranged about wAth hos
pital cots. Dr. Gray explained that
excellent as the results have been so
far, they will be better in the future,
since the Relief starts on her new
cruise with much improved X-ray ap-
pliances In the developing room he
showed a number OF X-ray plates,
such as were prepared for the surgeons
guidance: these cannot fail to furnish
! interesting data for the surgical his
tory OK the war
1t seemed that valuable time might
be lost in making these pictures, and
the doctor was asked about it.
1T is all done in few moments, he
said, five seconds for wound in the
hand, thirty seconds for one in the
foot, and not over ten or fifteen min
utes for wound through the thick
&c s+.l1 ont
here, the X-ray bulb adjusted over
the wound like this (see illustratioD,
the plate put under the limb or part
where the wound is, and the thing is
done. The plates are developed almost
instantly. In many cases we save
hours of vain searching; not infre-
quently we save the soldiers life"
Then he went on to tell OF a re-
markable case where a man was
wounded in the right shoulder by a
Mauser bullet, which plcwed its way
on around the chest walls under the
deep muscles and lodged in the left
arm, SCATTERING the humerus: Here
was an odd condition, a wound in the
right shoulder, but no bullet, the bone
of the left arm broken, but no wound.
HOwNong do you suppose it would have
taken to find that bullet by probing?
1t did not take us one minute to find it
with the X-rays. Here it is in this
picture; you see it there quite plainly
He handed over a skiagraph, repro
duced herewith, that shows the frac-
tured humerus and the imbedded bull
let, as if the arm were transparent. 1t
WAS simply q matter Of few cuts ana
the bullet was out.
Did the bullet do no harm, doctor,
in going through the body?"
Apparently not; the man made lit
tie complaint, and is doing nicely. We
have had more remarkable cases than
that of Mauser bullets passing through
the body and doing no harm. One man
was shot through from side to side,
with both lungs traversed, but he had
no symptoms, not even any bleeding.
There was just small red spot where J
the bullet went in and small red spot
where it came out If his leg had not I
been cracked by another shot, he would I
not have been in the hospital We /
had two cases on the ship shot through /
the intestines, but showing no symp- /
toms; one case of a man shot through /
the liver and kidneys, with no symp-
toms, and one very remarkable case
where a bullet entered the left chest
passed through the body and out of
the abdomen, went through the air for
a foot or so, and landed in the right
thigh, about half way to the knee"
WOUND IN THE HEART NOT
FATAL.
Another case, which caused some dis
,ussion among the surgeons, was that
If a man shot through the breast on
he left side, the bullet entering about
/ quarter of an inch below the nipple,
md passing out at the back, shatter-
ng the shoulder blade. The point of
kit showed that the bullet took an up
yard course, which made it certain
hat it passed very close to the point
If the heart; indeed, it is an open
question whether it did not actually
,ass through the heart. The doctors
ire agreed that it passed through the
or covering of the heart,
md Major George II. Torney the sur
,eon in command of the Relief is in
lined to believe that the heart itself
vas penetrated.
1T is conceivable" he said, that a
nan may live. as this one did, even
hough a bullet has gone through his
cart. We must suppose that the bull
ct struck the heart just as it was
rawn hard together in it's closest con-
raction. 1t is very likely that # the
anne bullet had come when the heart
7as on the other beat, and, therefore,
istended and softer, it would have