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

may have been with defective ammuni-
| ton used by the SpaniardS. Perhaps
the bullets were not really driven
against us as hard as is supposed. You
see, Mauser bullets are counted upon to
Kill at $500 yards, and most of our men
were wounded at distances varying be-
tween 500 and 1000 yards. Very few
were wounded under 500 yards, for the
simple reason that when we got as
close as that the SpaniardS ran. 1t is
rather odd, but true, that Spaniards
wounded under the same conditions as
our men usually show worse wounds
This is one of the puzzles of the war
that experts will have to work out
EFFECT OF BULLETS.
Lieutenant Colonel Sem, chief of
operating staff with the army in the
field. has been with the Relief, and
sails with her again. DR.. Sem eX-
plains the fact that so large a proper
ton of bullets as 10 per cent remained
in the bodies of the wounded on the
assumption that many of these bullets,
before striking the bodies in which they
lodged, had been impeded or DETECTED
IN their course by stones, trees, under
brush, etc, on the field. This would
seem to be indicated by the bent or
fiattened condition of many bullets
found embedded in soft tissues. DR..
Sem sees no reason to doubt that the
modern elongated bullet will become
encysted in the body as readi per-
haps more so, than the old-fashioned
leaden bullet. All patients treated by
him for gunshot wound in the spine,
where the spinal cord was seriously
damaged have died or will die in the
near future. AS to chest wounds, he
found an astonishing number where
the sufferers lived long enough to reach
a hospital or the coast, and, what is
still more surprising, he says that, bar
ring severe bemorrhage, the patients
symptoms were mild, some of them
being confined to bed for only few
days. All of these chest wound cases
were treated on the eXpectant plan
that is, by dressing the external wound
or wounds; in no instance was the
pleural cavity opened for the purpose
of arresting the hemorrhage.
''It is we'll known" said DR.. Sem,
that during the war of the rebellion
men had better chance for life when
bullet passed through the chest than
when the chest was opened and the
ball remained. The same remains true
now, although not to the same extent,
as the small calibre bullet is less likely
to carry with it into the chest clothing
or other infectious material.
mo further doubt remains in regard
gunshot wounds inflicted with large
and small calibre bullets. The cases
treated on board the Relief appear TO
prove that the danger incident to gum
shot wounds in the chest made by
small projectiles consist in complicat-
ing injuries, involving the heart and
large blood vessels, and that in the
absence of such injuries the progress
is favorable.
Another conviction that has been
in me by our recent eX-
perience in Cuba, is that not infre-
quently cases of penetrating gunshot
wounds in the abdomen will recover
without active surgical interference.
For years 1 have maintained, as the
result of clinical experience and ex-
periments on the cadaver, that a bull
let may pass through the abdomen on
a level with and above the umbilicuS
without producing visceral injuries
demanding active operation. On the
other hand, if bullet traverses the
small intestine area, it is probable that
from one to IA perforations will be
found. In this case death is almost
certain to ensue, and did ensue in every |
such instance in our Cuban experience, |
despite surgical operations"
CLEVELAND MOFFETT.