The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-07

such thing. l have seen men shot square ly through the lungs and it didn't stop them from smoking cigarettes. An Amer lean machine gun operator received such wound and never went to bed. l fe- member one battle. in which there was over dozen lung wounds. and they all recovered The metal jacketed bullets fired from lower power guns, like the .So-5o. .So3 and .s2 special, made clean cut hole. similar to the Mauser and .30-io, but were not so fatal at close range. l have seen several cases where Mauser bullet shattered the bone of inc upper arm for distance of two inches On the other hand i can recall two cases where 1t bored small hole through the angle of the lower iawhone
 The Mauser bullets used were full metal patched so l have not had an op- portunitv of observing the effects of a Mauser sof, nose The .sO-i0 soft nose made the most wicked wound of any bull let used during the war. One soldier was struck in the head by one of these bullets and the member was so shattered that amputation was necessary. Another car ried away the entire upper set of teeth, the upper lip and an inch of the tongue of one poor fellow. He nearly died nC hemorrhage while being carried to the rear The .32-40 .32 special .sS-55, soft nose was nearly bad in their effect. Next in severity comes the 30l30. 3o3 and calibers of that class Being shorter in range many Of the wounds made by these bullets struck at long range and failed to expand. Of course, the effect was not so severe The old II is inef- fective at military ranges, and 1t was not until the three days fight at Cludad Juarez (May 9, 10 and ID that l had an opportunity to observe wounds made by this short range bullet The fighting was at close range-across the street and from house to house-and they were about as effective as any. I do not recall more than halft a dozen cases where the pellet was found imbedded in the flesh. ant these were fired from either short range guns or revolvers.
 l have yet to find a Mauser bullet re maining in the body of a man struck bS one They go through and pass into tn, next county. flesh wound from z Mauser bullet Is usually trival affair The patients are out of the hospital in 6 week or 10 days Some of them never gt to the hospital to have them treated. A round ball from a shrapnel shell makes a very ugly wound. Each shell contains from 200 to 300 round balls weighing about three quarters of an ounce, and when the shell explodes these are scattered all over the field in front. If the shell explodes directly overhead there is no danger but if in front of column of several men l they are sure to be hit. The soft nose bullet fired from pistol does not expand 1 for the reason that there Is not sufficient | velocity.
 | All in all. the wounds most to be dread ed in battle are those through the abdo- men. In civil life the mortality is not so great. for the reason that the patient can be got to the hospital and operated on at once. In war this cannot be done. if it is generally from n hof they reach the general hospital The Mexicans do not have weli-equipped hospital corps with their army, and the first-aid work Is done under the most un- favorable surroundings. Some days elapse before the wounded reach medical atten- tion. It Is no uncommon thing to find pa tients who have been wounded three of four days and who have not had even a piece of gauge applied to thir wounds