Willmar tribune., 1904-08-03
MODERN SURGICAL METHODS
Fatality Of Bullet Wounds Greatly
Lessened by Advanced
Treatment.

raging in the far east between the armies
OF the mikado and the czar are very SIM
liar to the wounds received by the SOL
diers of Spain and Uncle Sans troops
in the SpanisS-American war and the
campaigns in the Philippines. The rec
ords of the Army Medical museum in
this city are replete with interesting
cases Of the recent conflicts, showing the
effect of the modern small-caliber fire.
arms now used by every civilized nation.
There are also records in the museum of
wounds received by Boer and Briton in
the late campaign in South Africa, states
the Washington Star.
One OF the papers, by Roswell Park,
professor OF surgery in the University
of Buffalo, who made careful study of
gunshot wounds made by modern mis-
siles in the war with Spain, states that
despite the fact that half the losses en-
tailed upon an army in atmilitary cam
paign are due to death from disease the
subject of gunshot wounds will always
possess for surgeon peculiar fascina-
tion and large degree of humanitarian
interest.
"The general importance of the SUBJ
ject," says DR.. Park, "combined with it's
peculiar Opportuneness at this time, has
led me to very willingly accede to the re-
quest of our president that I should
make some general remarks on the sub
ject"
The paper states that the latter part
OF the fourteenth and the early part of
the fifteenth centuries Braunschweig, a
noted military surgeon, who died in
1888, held that gunshot wounds were
poisoned wounds. The custom of the day
was to cauterize all these wounds with
boiling oil in order thus to destroy the
poison. During one of the campaigns
Of the famous general, Monte Jan, there
was such lack of hot oil that 1t could
not be used as he had previously seen it
used. He noted at once that the wounds
which had not thus been cauterized did
better than those in which it was used
and this clinical observation at once
prompted the great reform which must
ever be connected with his name, and
from that early day 10 the present few,
If any, great military surgeons thought
much about their poisonous character.
Baron Larrey, the great surgeon of the
Napolieonic campaigns, had an enor-
nous experience, says Dr. Park. It is
said that during the retreat from Mos
cow he made in one day 200 amputations
with his own hands, a record which has
never been approached by anyone else.
From his day down to the present, while
experience accumulated, the only thing
that we need particularly note in this
connection is the generally prevailing
impression that while a gunshot wound
is not necessarily poisoned wound it is
practically always necessary to remove
the bullet when it has lodged in the tis-
sues, a notion which even yet prevails
among those not fully informed on this
subject.
1T is hardly necessary" adds Surgeon
Park, Ito contrast the horrors of the old
days, before the antiseptic era, with the
kindly results obtained now under the
new method of treatment. The horri-
BILE prevalence of erysipelas, tetanus and
other infections under the old regime, the
frightful mortality of the past, have not
entirely disappeared as yet, but have
been startlingly reduced by the new anti
septic measures. The majority of men
who are not necessarily injured can be
redeemed from the military cemeteries
by the methods at present in use"