Europe. One of the machine guns which has been adopted by the War Department of the British army is on the Gatling principle.

FIG. 15.

Maxim automatic gun. This is a single-barrel machine gun, which can be either fired on its wheeled carriage or supported on a tripod. By an ingenious mechanism, through which the recoil of the barrel at each discharge is turned to account, the empty cartridge is automatically removed, and a fresh one brought into position. Hence its designation of automatic gun.

The following report respecting the work done by a 45 Maxim automatic gun at the Easter manoeuvres of 1892, by a detachment of the 3rd Vol. Batt. of the Royal West Kent Regiment, furnishes some idea of its capacity for inflicting wounds under suitable circumstances. The gun was drawn on its own carriage by one man over 1 mile of rough ground. A position was taken up in a hollow, there being in front a rise in the ground over which the gun had to fire. The gun and gunners were screened by the ridge from observation at the butts, as well as from 45° to the right, to about 70° on the left, of the line of fire. The whole of the ground in front and on the flanks of the gun was invisible to the firer beyond 60 yards. The effect of the fire was reported by officers on the look-out on both flanks. The butts were distant 1200 yards from the gun. At this distance all the shots fell on the hostile position, striking the screens and ground on which they were placed. The effect of the fire was distinctly visible to the look-outs by the sand thrown up. The fire was by single shots, and also by rapid firing. In the latter case, bullets at the rate of 650 per minute were discharged, and caused a cloud of sand and dust to rise over the front of the butts. The gun and its detachment were so completely hidden in the hollow ground that the markers were unable to discover, by smoke or otherwise, whence the fire was coming.16

Cartridge of the French Revolver Gun. (After Delorme.)

So far as surgeons are concerned in the treatment of wounds inflicted by machine guns, their introduction, like the change from muzzle-loading to breech-loading arms, has been calculated chiefly to lead to greater difficulties in field-hospital administration. No alteration of the characters of individual wounds has been caused

с

by such weapons, but instances of multiple wounds may be expected to be more numerous. The most serious question they give rise to is how far the surgical care and attention necessary for the increased number who are likely to be wounded by them within very short periods of time can be adequately provided.

Fougasses.-Fougasses are strong cases containing explosive materials, which are so disposed as to act as shallow subterraneous mines, and to wound men who may tread upon them. They are constructed on various plans, but all on the same principles, for the defence of places on land. Certain amounts of gunpowder or other explosive materials are placed in bottles or shells inside the outer case, which is then concealed a short distance below the surface of the ground, and such arrangements are made that the weight of a person walking over the spot suffices to cause the material to be exploded, and to effect the forcible projection of fragments of the case or of stones placed over it, and thus to wound some of the troops who are advancing to an attack. The Russians at Sebastopol employed water-tight boxes containing hstween 30 and 40 pounds of powder, and the ignition was caused by the action of sulphuric acid upon a mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphur, and other ingredients. The acid was contained in a glass tube concealed from sight by being lightly covered with warth, and the ignition was effected on the tube being crushed by the trend of a soldier. Some seconds occasionally elapsed before the explosion took place after the tube had been trodden upon, and General Airey appeared to owe the preservation of his life, on the occasion of the last armistice during the Crimean war, to this fact. His horse trod on one of these fougasses, but being in a canter at the time, was sufficiently advanced, when the explosion occurred, for the General to escape unhurt. The horse was, however, very near, for its tail was singed by the flame.

Fougasses serve military purposes, not only by means of the injuries directly inflicted by them, but also by their deterrent effects on assailants, owing to the uncertainty respecting their positions and numbers. Especially does this happen when assaults are made in the dark at night. In the month of June 1855, my friend Major Herbert, of the Welsh Fusiliers, had a very narrow escape from being destroyed by one of these infernal machines, as they were often called. He was in command of a large working party, and had to proceed across open ground in front of the trenches to a position known as the Quarries.' The men moved in line, and nearly the whole of the party must have gone close to the spot where a fougasse was hidden, without causing its explosion. unfortunately happened, however, that a man of the 55th giment who was carrying a stretcher, and who was one of the st men in the rear of the line, trod on the source of ignition, when the explosion immediately followed. The man was blown

to pieces, and the stretcher driven a long distance away, while five men were wounded. Major Herbert, who was not far from the place where the fougasse exploded, was struck by some of the earth scattered around by the explosion.

Fougasses were largely employed in the defence of places during the war of the rebellion in the United States, but they appear to have been usually designated 'torpedoes.' In Europe the name 'torpedoes' is generally restricted to the explosive machines placed in water, and designed for blowing up ships, and for purposes of coast defence. They are similar to fougasses in their nature and principles of action, but vary greatly in their forms, construction, and modes of ignition.

CHAPTER V

PORTABLE FIRE-ARMS AND THEIR PROJECTILES

Early history. The first portable fire-arms, hand-cannon' and hand-guns,' were not invented until a century later than the larger kinds of gun or cannon. The hand-cannon was merely a small and light cannon carried by two men, and was fired from a rest fixed in the ground. The hand-gun was an improved handcannon, the tube being of greater length, and cast in brass. The tube was fixed on a straight stock of wood about three feet in length, and, like the cannon, was fired by a lighted match applied by the hand to some gunpowder placed in a small pan connected by a small opening the touch-hole-with the charge in the interior of the gun. The projectiles used with it were probably, like those of the first cannon, made occasionally of stone, as well as of iron and lead. Hand-guns are said to have been in use in England as early as 1446. The hand-gun, like the arquebus which followed it, was fired from the front of the chest, and as its stock or butt was quite straight, it is obvious that the eye could not be brought into such a position in relation to the barrel of the gun as to enable an accurate aim to be taken at any given object.

The hand-gun was next improved by the introduction of a trigger, to cause the burning match to be brought quickly, and with precision, into contact with the powder in the pan. This contrivance was copied from the trigger of the cross-bow, and these improved hand-guns took the same name, 'arquebus,' 17 as had previously been applied to a kind of cross-bow which was fitted with a 'prodd,' or tube for the discharge of small stones and bullets, before the invention of gunpowder. The yeomen of the guard, when first formed in the year 1485, were armed one-half with bows and arrows, the other half with arquebuses. Among

troops the soldiers armed with the arquebus were designated arquebusiers. The arquebus was very similar to the matchlock,' such as may still be seen in use among some Eastern people.

The earliest English writer on injuries resulting from fire-arms is Thomas Gale. He was contemporary with Ambrose Paré, the earliest writer of note on the same subject in France. Gale published his Treatise of Wounds made with Gonneshot' in 1563. In his work he mentions that he served in the army, under Henry VIII., against France, in 1544. He probably remained with it till the end of the war in 1546. He also refers to his service with the English forces which assisted Philip II. of Spain, in defeating the French at St. Quentin, in 1557. At these periods the greater part of the British infantry were still armed with bows and arrows, halberds and pikes; only a small portion were armed with hand-guns or arquebuses.

About the year 1544, the musket, or musquet, a Spanish invention, was introduced into England. The musket was much longer and heavier than the arquebus, so that, when discharged, . it had to be supported on a staff, fitted with a forked rest at the top, and with a ferule at the bottom to help in planting it in the ground. The muskets were matchlock fire-arms, and the soldiers who used them were called musqueteers. It is to be inferred from Gale's writings 18 that, in his time, stones were still in occasional use as shot, instead of leaden bullets, or pellets, 19 as Gale and the early English writers call them, with some of the abovenamed fire-arms.

'Snaphaunces,' which were portable arms discharged by the spark from a flint and steel, sometimes called flintlocks' or 'firelocks,' were invented to take the place of matchlocks in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The fusil,' a flintlock of about the same length and calibre as the musket, but considerably less in weight, was first made use of in England about the time of Charles II. Three of the regiments still known as fusiliers in the British army, were raised during this and the succeeding reign.20

It is quite evident, from a study of the fire-arms of early times, down to the time of the introduction of firelocks, that the arms were very unevenly bored, and that very little, if any, attempt was made to prevent escape of gas between the shot and the surface of the bore of the weapon by making the projectile fit the gun closely. Accuracy of aim was consequently unattainable. The force impressed on the projectile chiefly depended on the quantity of gunpowder used.

Muskets and their projectiles.-The observations embodied in Richard Wiseman's Treatise on Gunshot Wounds' were chiefly made by this admirable surgeon, so far as wounds among soldiers on shore were concerned, during a portion of the civil strife which led to so many battles in England between the

years 1642

and 1650. At this time the shot used with the fire-arms carried by the troops had fixed weights and sizes. The common musket, still a matchlock, had 10 bullets to the pound, the arquebus 17 to the pound, the flintlock carbine 24 to the pound. Pistols were also in use with long barrels, and carrying shot about 20 to the pound.

The writer next to Wiseman of importance in England on gunshot wounds was the illustrious John Hunter. Sir E. Home, in his account of the life of his brother-in-law, John Hunter, mentions that he went with the army to Belle-Isle as a staffsurgeon; that he served, while the war continued, as senior surgeon on the staff, both in Belle-Isle and Portugal, till the year 1763; and that it was at this time he acquired his experience of gunshot wounds. Hunter himself mentions that he arranged his Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds,' at Belle-Isle, after the reduction of the place.

The ammunition used by the troops at this time appears to have undergone no other change, so far as the projectiles were concerned, than a small amount of diminution in their weight. The gunpowder and musket had been improved in various ways. The flintlock was used universally instead of the matchlock. The infantry soldier was disencumbered of various articles of equipment which he had previously carried, and his arms were now confined to the smooth-bore musket of 75 inch bore, weighing together with the bayonet a little over 12 lbs. The bullets were apparently of the same sizes as those in use at the beginning of the present century, viz., some nominally 14 to the pound, varying from 480 to 488 grains, with a diameter of 695 inch; and others weighing about 574 grains, with a diameter of 745 inch. The charge of gunpowder was 6 drachms.

Leaden bullets were made in Hunter's time, and for many years afterwards,21 by being cast in moulds. They were scarcely ever free from minute air-bubble spaces, owing to the lead being bulkier in the molten than in the solid state, and to the exterior becoming cooled before the substance within. From the fact just mentioned, and from impurities in the lead, it scarcely ever happened that bullets were of the same density throughout. This and various other causes, some of which will be noticed hereafter, caused the bullets discharged from muskets to be very irregular in their flight, their rate of velocity to be very low, and the distance to which they were capable of travelling very limited.

The same fire-arm and projectile continued in general use among the British troops, without any improvement of note, during the Peninsular campaigns from 1808 to 1814, in the campaign of 1815, during the American war between 1812 and 1814, and in the numerous battles in which British troops were engaged in the East Indies. The smooth-bore musket in use during this