Middletown transcript., 1898-09-03
SURGERY OFTHEWAR
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM A STUDY
OF VARIOUS WOUNDS.
DR.. Gray of the Hospital Ship Relief
Tells of the Operations on Board Ship.
Peculiar Work of Some Bullets-x Ray
In Surgery.

d. Gray OF the Hospital snip BeueI
Tells of the Operations on Board Ship.
Peculiar Work of Some Bullets-x Ray
In Surgery.
DR.. William M. Gray of the hospital
ship Relief found time the other day to
talk of the part that surgery has played
in the present war and the influence of
new scientific appliances as tested by
experience in making the lot of wounded
men easier. DR.. Gray is the micro
scopist of the Medical museum in Wash
ington and was detailed by that insti-
tuition for surgical work with special
reference to the diagnosis of gunshot
wounds by the Roentgen rays.
Zone thing this war has taught" he
said, is that the probe in all it's forms
has gone out of use. No more searching
blindly in mans body for the bullet,
no more danger of blood poisoning from
the introduction into the wound of in
struments of search. The horoscope
tells us instantly where the projectile
has imbedded itself, and we have only
to cut it out as if it were there before
our eyes. We took out bullets by the
pint on board the Relief, and, almost
without exception, they were located
by the < rays"
The surgeon exhibited the apparatus
for producing the K rays and showed a
number of K ray plates, such as were
prepared for the surgeons guidance.
It seemed that valuable time might
be lost in making these pictures, and
the doctor was asked about it.
'It is all done in few moments" he
said. Give seconds for a wound in the
hand, 80 seconds for one in the foot,
and not over 10 or Is minutes for a
wound through the thick pelvis. The
patient is stretched out here, the < ray
bulb adjusted over the wound like this,
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 infrequently we
save the soldiers life.
Then he went on to tell of a case
where man was wounded in the right
shoulder by a Mauser bullet, which
plowed its way on around the chest
walls under the deep muscles and lodged
in the left arm, shattering the hu-
merus: "Here was an odd condition, a
wound in the right shoulder, but no
bullet. The bone of the left arm broken,
but no wound. How long do yop sup
pose it would have taken to find that
bullet by probing? 1t did not take us one
minute to find it with the K rays. Here
it is in this picture; you see it there
quite plainly"
He handed over a skiagraph that
showed the fractured humorous and the
imbedded bullet as if the arm were
transparent It was simply matter Of
a few cuts and the bullet was out.
"Did the bullet do no harm 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
the bullet went in and small red spot
where it came out. If his leg had not
been cracked by another shot, he would
not have been in the hospital. We had
two cases on the ship shot through the
intestines, but showing no symptoms.
One case of aman shot through the liver
and kidneys, with no symptoms, and
one very remarkable case where bullet
entered the left chest, passed through
the body and out of the abdomen, went
through the air for foot or SO and
landed in the right thigh, about half
way to the knee.
Another case which caused some dis
cussion among the surgeons was that of
a man shot through the breast on the
left side, the bullet entering about a
quarter Of an inch below the nipple and
passing out at the back, shattering the
shoulder blade. The point of exit show
ed that the bullet took an upward
course, which made it certain that it
passed very close to the point Of the
heart. Indeed it is an open question
whether it did not actually pass through
the heart. The doctors are agreed that
it passed through the pericardium, or
covering of the heart, and Major George
Fl. Torney, the surgeon in command of
the Relief, is inclined to believe that
the heart itself was penetrated.
1T is conceivable, he said, "that
man may live as this one did, even If
bullet has gone through his heart. We
must suppose that the bullet struck the
heart just as it was drawn hard together
in it's closest contraction. It is very
likely that if the same bullet had come
when the heart was on the other beat,
and therefore distended and softer, it
would have been so torn that death
would have ensued. +"
One Of the surprises of this war to
the surgeons has been the failure of the |
Mauser bullets to do such work of bone |
shattering and general destruction as
had been prophesied for it. The result |
Of many experiments made before the
war had been to satisfy experts that this |
small bullet with its velocity would do
more damage to the human body than |
had ever been done by any other bullet.
You know they told us, said DR..
Gray, "that the Mauser bullets would
make small hole where they entered
the body, but would come out through |
a hole big enough to put your fist in. |
Well, nothing Of the sort has happened |
in cases under our observation. On the |
contrary, the hole of exit has often been |
quite as small as the hole of entry. |
Take that case I mentioned of the man |
shot through from side to side. There |
was no difference in the size Of the two
holes, and both were very small.
'Then they teld us and seemed to
prove it by experiment that the impact
Of Mauser bullet against large bones
or against the skull would cause q