The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1918-08-20
(By Associated Press.)

(By Associated Press.)
Paris, Aug. 20.-The case of one
American marine who went through
hail of shrapnel and machine gun
fire at Cantigny and is now GONZALES
cling from wound in the great Amer
lean military hospital at Neuilly, in
the Paris suburbs, seems to have den-
onstrated that the American field he'll
met, commonly called by soldiers, the
tin hat" is thoroughly reliable ar
ticle when put to the supreme test.
This marine owed his life to his
''tin hat" and the peculiar qualities
OF its steel in giving slightly without
shattering In the midst of the ac-
ton he went down with ball strik-
ing the top of the helmet and pressing
down to the skull. He was brought
back along with the helmet which
showed deep indentation about the
size of half baseball. It was this
indentation which had pressed down
to the scalp, making wound which
required trepaning. But there 1t
stopped and the metal of the tin hat
after giving to the missile until its
force was spent, had stopped it in its
deadly flight straight toward the
brain. The trepaning operation was
only slight and the marine was we'll
on the way to recovery.
The indented helmet was preserved,
not as a souvenir, but to be forwarded
to the ordnance experts at Washing
ton to show them the good qualities of
their helmets 1t is said that hard
and brittle steel, which would have
have resisted without giving, would
have been shattered to bits by the i'm
pact and the ball would have gone
straight drought the brain.
In an adjoining ward stalwart
young marine who had been in the
same Cantigny fight stood at attention
with no apparent sign Of wound. But
the surgeon, feeling the boys throat,
nodded .approvingly and then re.
marked that this was one of the most
remarkable cases that had ever come
under his observation, and probably
the only case of the kind on record.
A bullet had struck the soldier in the
left side of the neck and had gone
through to the gullet, where it stopped
and had then descended or been swat.
lowed into the stomach.
An X-ray examination clearly
showed the ball in the intestines. But
instead of removing it by an opera
tons the surgeons decided to await
the course of nature and see if the
soldier would digest the rifle ball
And this he did. One of the surgeons
remarked that the chances of such a
thing happening were less than one in
million, but colleague added that
the chances were far less thar that
as he could not recall any like case
in the whole range of military sur
gerry.
Many of the French poilus under
American care were in the wards OF
the Daughters of the American Con-
federacy, with the beds marked with
the names of the well-known southern
figures, such as Stonewall jackson
Senator Zebulon Vance, General o.
seph Wheeler of Alabama.
When the big dietary kitchen was
4 inspected later there was a savory
smell of American dishes and dainties
!. being prepared for the wounded men
and one of the surgeons cheered the
cooks with the remark "Your dishes
do more good than all our medicines
And this is literally true, for these
American wounded do not want for
eign foods but long for the simple old
fashioned dishes of home, like boiled
custard, matted milk, egg-nog and
bread and milk. So that, even in the
food American cooks are doing their
share, and down to the last detail the