The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1914-10-07
DUAIDUM MYTH.
Why Each Side Believed Enemy Was
Using Inhuman Bullets.

We have heard the protests Of EN-
peror William and President Poin.
caire against the alleged use of the
dumdum bullets by their opponents
It was not believed that either OF
these great European nations would
descend to such desperate attempts
against the soldiers of the other
Yet it was hardly believable that
either the rulers in question woulS
make such protests unless sincere in
the belief that the enemy was max
ing use of the dumdum bullet.
It seems now, says The Medical
Record, that the explanation Of these
seeming contradictory assertions is
not hard to find. In an editorial
comment on Colonel La Garde's re
cent work on "Gunshot Injuries" in
The Medical Record OF May 2, we
prophesied that there would be a re.
turn to iuhumanity in the next war
because of the use of the spitz bullet
recently introduced by Germany and
adopted by several other armies, that
of Great Britain and the United
States among them.
This bullet is quite short, of conf
cal shape, and tapers so gradually
that the center of gravity is thrown
back near the base; consequently, in
spite of it's great initial velocity and
fiat projectory, it has tendency to
turn sideways upon meeting any OBJ
stable, although it will go through
the soft parts making small clean
cut channel, and do little or no in
jury unless it hits vital organ.
In the article on "Gunshot
Wounds" in the fourth volume Of the
Reference Handbook of the Medical
Sciences, Colonel La Garde says Of
this bullet: "The least resistance
upsets it and in turning at great We
locity the wounds it inflicts are very
much lacerated and otherwise attend
ed with destructive effects which are
not unlike the wounds inflicted by
dumdum bullets
For this reason. the new pointed
bullet is a great disappointment to
military surgeons. In experiments
which We conducted two years ago,
We found the resistance encountered
in the hip-joint, chest, and abdomen
of cadayers sufficient to cause the
bullet to turn and the resulting
wounds were like those of an expand
ing or metal-patch bullet"
In all probability these spitz bullet
wounds have been mistaken for the
explosive LESSONS of the dumdum bull
lets, and the accusation of the Ger
man emperor was therefore made in
good faith, but in curious ignorance
of the effects of-the missiles used by
his own army. Nevertheless, con-
cludes The Medical Journal, the dunn
dunn or a similar bullet has been oc-
casionally used in this war, but by
civilians.
East Prussia, for instance, is a
game country and the hunters there
use the dumdum type of bullet in the
chase. The Russian invaders OF that
have been frequently attack
ed by "snipers' who used their hunt
ing rifles loaded with dumdums.
1t is possible that the civilian hunt |
ers in eastern France did the same,
and so an occasional dumdum may
have been found in the bodies of the |
German wounded, but that the armies
If any of the nations now at war are
using this bullet is altogether i'm
probable. They have no occasion to
use it, for the spitz bullet is almost |
Is destructive and it's employment is
ust as brutal.