The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1904-11-10
JAPS' LITTLE BULLETS.
WOUNDS ONCE CONSIDERED
MORTAL HEAL RAPIDLY.


let's Of Japanese-AstonIshing Re-
coveries from the Effect Of Gunshot
Wounds In the Manchurian Cam
paign.
The st. Petersburg correspondent
Of the London Telegraph gives some
astonishing accounts of the effect of
the Japanese bullets as shoWn by the
condition of the Russian wounded.
The Japanese have merited well of
their enemies, he says, for their hui
manity in dealing death on the battle
field. Their bullets, say the Russian
surgeons, are, il not precisely harm
less, at least the next best thing to
that-they form the mildest kind Of
missile that has ever yet been hurled
from a rife. One of the consequences
Is that a number of wounds which
were formerly mortal are now healed
and forgotten in a few days. Another
Is that the number of Russians who
quit the hospital for the battlefield is
greater than was eve witnessed in
any war before. Blessings on the
little Japs for their tiny little bullets,
say the Cossacks and C~aucasians.
"In the sanitary train we have as
founding cases of wounds healed"
writes a surgeon; "the character of
the hurt surprises us, and as for the
rapidity with which the soldier recov-
ers, well, 1t is hard to ask any one
to believe it who has not actually
seen it.
wounds caused by bullets which
enter the chest and go out through
the back are of frequent occurrence.
The patients recover rapidly. Take,
for instance, Private Kurtoff, of the
Third Fast Siberian Rifles. He was
shot a Wafangkow on June Is. The
bullets entered mis- lungs. For less
than ten days blood was detected in
his saliva, but soon all symptoms had
gone, the wounds were cicatriced, and
the brave warrior is himself once
more and back on the field as active
as ever. Private Rules had a hole
uldu0 III Ills llNSl, puI liz, wv, h0o -
ready begun to forget that ne ever
had a wound there. On the same bat
tleield a private of the Tbirty-fourth
East Siberian Regiment named Bulga-
koff received a mild Japanese bull
let, which passed through one OF his
lungs and his diaphragm, injured his
liver and went out at the spinal col
umn. He was picked up, cared for
and cured, and now he is on his way
to Russia to take a rest.
"Vilkovitch is the name OF a SOL
der of the Third East Siberian Regi-
ment who has had a wonderful expert
ence to look back upon. His bullet
found it's billet when he was lying be-
hind the intrenchments at Wafang-
kuw, on June Is. 1t cut it's way
through his shoulderblade, passed
through his lungs, penetrated the dia-
phragm and the abdomen, damaged
the intestines and went out. The sol
der was a fortnight under treat
ment and is now on the wal path once
more"
A medical investigator called upon
a captain who had been in the thick
of the fight and had lost all his young
or officers, non-commissioned officers
and 140 privates, between May 81 and
July Is, and. asked him for informa-
ton.
~ am lost in wonder" he remarked
10 the captain, "at the miraculous
way in which our fellows rise from
the dead, as it were. They recover
from wounds which are officially NOR
tai. Now, I want you to tell me, are
these exceptional cases that l have
been studying, or have you anything
like them?"
1.-THE Japs fire accurately" was the
answer; they often nit our men in
the head. but when the bullets pass
clean through, many of the men get
WE'LL"
Curious. Well, and how do they
fare when the bullet strikes them in
the abdomen? You know a hurt in
the peritoneum almost infallibly
brings on peritonitis and death. And
yet we are transporting men who
were wounded in that very region and
are now hale and hearty"
81 suppose that means only that
they were wounded while they had
been long fasting. If a man gets a
bullet in the peritoneum on a full
stomach ne will probably not live to
enjoy many more meals. Anyhow, I
can tell you that whoever gets n of
our bullets either in the abdomen or
the head won't worry much in this
vale of tears"
How do you account for the diff
terence in the results?"
"I attribute it to their funny bull
lets, which have a different mantle
from ours. Theirs Is more compact.
But if you take it and rub it ever so
little on a stone, then it's deadly. But
besides the quality of the casting
there is the size of the bullet itself.
Compared with ours it is tiny, and it's
velocity is considerably greater. Our
magazine rife 1881 model takes a
bullet of three linss, and imparts to
1t an initial velocity of 5000 metres;
whereas the Jap rifles (model 1897
have a 2.5-line bullet with an initial
velocity of 725 metres. The Japanese
bullet only penetrates the tissue, but
does not tear it. just as a bullet fired
from a rifle NAV make a hole in a