Bullets fired into gunpowder, note 23, p. 119. The gunpowder used by Dr. Schadel was the small grain powder ordinarily used with fowling-pieces; the powder used by Paré and Gale was probably similar to what is now called 'mealed powder. Although such yielding and mobile powders are not exploded by the impact of a bullet even when possessing a high degree of energy, trials have shown that the larger forms of gunpowder, such as prism powder, can be fired by the impact of a bullet having a striking velocity of a little over 600 ft.-secs. (Treatise on Ammunition,' 1892, p. 10). This effect is doubtless due to the resistance of the solid compressed gunpowder to the action of the bullet. Many accidents have shown that gunpowder can be exploded either by friction or a blow under special circumstances, and hence the precautions taken in dealing with powder magazines are quite necessary. Heat of projectiles, note 24, p. 120. MV2 By Dr. Hagenbach's calculation, the impetus of the ball was equal to 209 kilogrammetres, and its mechanical equivalent of heat 049 thermal unit. The entire projectile (40 grammes) had to be raised to near the temperature of the melting-point of lead, and the 27 grammes (only 13 grammes being unmelted) had to be melted. Assuming 100° C. as the initial temperature of the bullet, which was somewhat warmed by the heat of combustion and friction, the melting-point of lead being 335° C., its specific heat 0·031, and its latent heat of fusion 5.37, he finds necessary for heating 0.29 thermal unit, and for fusion 015; giving a total of 0.44 thermal unit, this being only 05 less than the estimated mechanical equivalent (see Poggendorf's Annalen der Physik und Chemie,' Band 140, p. 486, 1870). In a subsequent volume of the same journal (Band 141, p. 594, 1871) Mr. J. Bodynski criticises Dr. Hagenbach's calculation, and shows that the impetus was really equal not to 209, but to 2048 kilogrammetres, and that consequently, 424 kilogrammetres being equal to 1 heat unit, the total heat developed would be 4.83 heat units. But 4.83 heat units, if wholly expended in melting lead, would suffice to melt 381 grammes, not 27 grammes: the excess of heat, however, is expended in the manner quoted in the text. Effects of pressure on heated bullets, note 25, p. 123. 618 MV2 2 See experimental specs. in cases 15 and 18 in Museum of Military Surgery at Netley. Poison of gunshot wounds, note 26, p. 124. Paré gives the following account of the occurrence referred to in the text. He had gone into Sardinia in 1536, as surgeon of General Montejan, who held a command in the army of Francis the First of France. When alluding to an engagement in which there were many men wounded by bullets on both sides, he writes: 'I will tell the truth, I was not very expert at that time in matters of chirurgery; neither was I used to dress wounds made by gunshot. Now I had read in John de Vigo, that wounds made by gunshot were venenate, or poisoned, and that by reason of the gunpowder; wherefore for their cure, it was expedient to burn them with oil of elders, scalding hot, with a little treacle mixed therewith. However, as I gave no great credit to the author or his remedy, from knowing that caustics could not be poured into wounds without excessive pain, I determined before I would run any risk to see whether the surgeons who were with me in the army used any other kind of dressing to these wounds. I observed that all of them used the method of dressing prescribed by Vigo, and that they filled, as full as they could, the gunshot wounds with tents and pledgets dipped in this scalding oil at the first dressing, which encouraged me to do the same to those who came to me to be dressed. It chanced on a time that, by reason of the multitude who were hurt, I was in want of this oil. Now because there were some few left to be dressed, I was forced, that I might not seem to be without anything needful, and that I might not leave them undressed, to apply a digestive made of the yolk of an egg, oil of roses, and turpentine. I could not sleep all that night, for I was troubled in mind; the dressing of the preceding day (which I judged unfit) disturbed my thoughts; and I feared that the next day I should find those whom I had not dressed with scalding oil dead, or at the point of death, from the poison of their wounds. I therefore rose early in the morning, visited my patients, and, contrary to expectation, I then found such as I had dressed with a digestive only free from excessive pain, that they had had good rest, and that their wounds were not inflamed nor tumefied; while, on the contrary, the others that were burned with the scalding oil were feverish, tormented with much pain, and the parts around their wounds were swollen. When I had tried this many times in others, I thought thus much-that neither I nor any other ought ever to cauterise wounds made by gunshot.' Dailly, note 27, p. 125. The title of Dailly's work referred to is-Traité des Blessures et Playes faites par Armes à Feu, vulgairement dites Playes d'Arquebusades. Auquel sont amplement expliquées leur Nature et Curation avec la Manière de Corriger les Accidents qui les Accompagnent, le tout avec Méthode. Mis en François par Pierre Dailly, Maistre Chirurgien Juré à Paris. A Paris, chez André Boutonné, au Palais, vis-à-vis la Sainte Chapelle, à la belle estoille, 1668. The work is divided into thirty-five chapters. The first chapter, De la Nature et Essence des Playes d'Arquebusades, and the seventh chapter, Ou l'on détruit l'Opinion de ceux qui rejettent la Qualité veneneuse des Playes d' Arquebusades, contain the arguments adduced by the author to show that gunshot wounds are poisoned wounds. There is a good copy of Dailly's work in the British Museum Library. The name of the author is given in the catalogue as D'Ailly, but Dailly is the correct name, as shown at the end of the prefatory epistle, and also in the Extrait du Privilège du Roy. The first two letters are accidentally separated in the title-page of the book, but there is no apostrophe between them. Poisoned bullets, note 28, p. 125. Des Plaies d'Armes à Feu; Communications faites à l'Académie Nat. de Médecine, Paris, 1849, p. 9. Note 29, p. 126.-Op. cit. supra, p. 83. Note 30, p. 127.-Clowes, to determine whether the flame of the fire out of the peece doth extinguish and kill the force and strength of any poisoned shot,' got the master-gunner at Portsmouth to let one of the soldiers fire an arrow out of a musquet. The soldier, 'taking his rest' at 200 paces, caused the arrow to stick deeply in the post of a gate, when, it was found, 'not one feather was touched with flame or fire.' Clowes relates that he had since seen the like done with our common sheafe arrows in a caliver,' and concludes that this proveth the fire cannot burn out the impression of a poisoned bullet.' (The question of the power of the flame in a fire-arm to sterilise a bullet fired from it has not been left unconsidered in our own day.) Among the cases of gunshot wounds recorded by Clowes is one of an officer who was wounded in the right natis by a musket bullet. The missile lodged, and was followed by great oedema, pain, general anxiety, &c. Clowes consults a physician in the case, whose advice is 'To make deepe incision, and then with a pair of tenacles to take hold of the bullet and to bring it out so easily as may be; then to scarifie well the lips or sides of the wound, which done, yee shall presently set on a strong cupping glasse or a flame of fire, that yee may the better evacuate and draw out the venomous and poisoned blood which lurketh deeply in the bottom of the wound.' Clowes mentions that he treated the case according to this advice, and the patient recovered. He notices that, on extracting the bullet, he found it strangely indented and marked with unusual colours, which colours, on the lead being melted, went away. It is curious to observe, when a preconceived opinion prevails, what ordinary circumstances are turned to its support. The case quoted is headed, 'Cure of a Lieutenant which was shot in the Right Buttock with a Poisoned Bullet.' See Clowes' Works, edition 1596, pp. 44-50. SECTION III CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF GUNSHOT INJURIES Angle of impact, note 1, p. 132. Sir Gilbert Blane, in his account' Of the Wounds received in the Actions of April 1782' ('On the Dis. of Seamen,' 3rd edition, 1803, p. 575), refers to two instances of a ball passing close to the stomach and producing instant death, life being destroyed, 'without any visible external injury or breach of the parts, nor any appearance of the body from whence the injury proceeded.' Mr. Ellis (op. cit. infra) refers to the case of Captain M. of the Bengal Native Infantry, who, while serving in Lord Lake's army, lost the sight of both eyes by the passage of a cannon ball across his face, which inflicted no external mark of injury; also, to the case of an officer in the trenches at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, who, while in the act of stooping to assist a soldier who had fallen, lost instantaneously the sight of one eye, and gradually that of the other, in consequence of a cannon ball passing across his face without touching it. Injuries attributed to windage of shot, note 2, p. 134. J. Brown, surgeon to Charles II., afforded an example in his own person of an erroneous impression, such as is described in the text. He had his arm broken by a cannon-shot, and attributed the injury to the effects of windage. He writes: "The which I am sufficiently satisfied in, having been made an example of the same in the Dutch wars by the wind of a 24-pound bullet, by which my arm was miserably fractured and contused.'-See chap. xviii. of A Compleat Discourse of Wounds both in General and Particular, &c.,' by John Brown, Sworn Chirurgeon in Ordinary to the King's most Excellent Majesty, London, 1678. Injuries from windage, note 3, p. 134. I have found the notion that the wind of shot' could produce injuries in some of the earliest writings on gunshot wounds. In the work of Alf. Ferrius, De Sclopetorum sive Archibusorum Vulneribus, published at Rome in 1552, and in the 18th chapter of the 2nd book, De Majorum Bellicorum Fulminum Contusionibus, there occurs the following passage: 'Fieri enim forte fortunâ potest, ut non semper interimant, sed contundant tantum, vel ictu, vel etiam spiritu,' &c. Light substances carried by shot, note 4, p. 134. Dr. Spence observes in his remarks on this subject: 'I know an officer who had considerable pain in the loins for some time after a battle, supposed to be from the wind of a shot, as he was not conscious of anything having hit him, and there was no external mark; but the flakes of a bed from the hammock-knittings being pretty thick on his coat, showed to me that the pain was produced by something more dense than wind. As to the fact of cannon balls carrying light substances with them, they so very seldom stick in the body, I have had no opportunity to ascertain positively that they do; but with grape-shot, canister-shot, and musket balls, I have had ample testimony; and I think there is every reason to believe that cannon balls do also, from the many pieces carried away where the shot have hit or passed through; and it is also pretty evident on sweeping the decks after a battle.'- -'Observations on those Accidents commonly ascribed to the Wind of a Ball.' G. T. Spence, M.D., Surgeon R.N., in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. viii. p. 161. Electricity supposed to accompany shot, note 5, p. 134. See 'Observations on the Nature and Cause of certain Accidents which sometimes occur in Battle, and have been usually ascribed to the Wind of a Ball,' by Mr. Ellis, in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for January 1812 Combatants and windage of shot, note 6, p. 134. Frequent reference to injuries from windage is made in military writings. The following quotation is illustrative of the belief in them which is still impressed on the minds of combatants: 'I pushed on, and reached the point of my destination in safety; but galloping back, I felt a stunning blow across the spine, and at the same moment my horse rolled over with me. I was confident the animal had been struck by a cannon ball; but, to my great surprise, I was not able to discover any wound. As I was myself unhurt, I remounted my brave animal and continued my way. A solid shot had passed close to my horse's back, and the current of air set in motion by its passage had knocked over both horse and rider. Afterwards, during the war, I witnessed many similar cases of prostration of men and animals by windage.'-' Memoirs of the Confederate War of Independence,' by Heros von Borcke, chief of the staff to General J. E. B. Stuart, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xcviii., October 1865, p. 392. Near passage of shot without hurt from win lage, note 7, p. 134. Mr. Bransby Cooper used to relate an instance which came under his own observation of the little effect produced by the 'wind of a ball.' When he was an assistant-surgeon of the Royal Artillery, and on duty near Bayonne, he saw a 32-pounder shot pass between the outstretched thighs of an artillery officer at the time he was sighting a gun. It caught and carried off the tail of his uniform coat, but did no further injury whatever. Mr. Cooper's faith in the wind of a shot having any power to hurt a person was shaken from the date of this occurrence. Ear removed by shot and no hurt from windage, note 8, p. 135. In the Edinburgh Medical Journal of 1890, pp. 685–88, will be found some interesting communications from the late Dr. Pagan of Edinburgh to myself. At the battle of Waterloo, Dr. Pagan, then a lieutenant of the 55th Regiment, had the external portion of one of his ears torn away by a ricochet cannonshot which killed several men and officers near to him. In the latter days of his life Dr. Pagan informed me that he heard better on the side which had been rased by this massive projectile than he did on the opposite side, which had been untouched. The auditory nerve on the wounded side had not been affected, notwithstanding the close proximity of the passing gunshot. Although ingenious applications of photographic science have rendered visible the waves of air set in movement by a bullet in its flight, I know from experience in my own person that, at a distance as near as possible without contact, the disturbance of the air particles conveys no sensation to the surface of the face. The passage of a bullet that passed close to my cheek at the battle of the Alma and struck an officer directly behind me was only known to me by the sound which accompanied it in its flight. Windage of shot disproved by experiment, note 9, p. 135. Delorme, in his Chirurgie de Guerre, p. 474, refers to Paré, Bilguer, the surgeon-in-chief under Frederick the Great, Tissot, Boucher, Ravaton, Hevin, Dufouart, among writers on gunshot wounds, who have defended the doctrine of the action of the vent de boule'. Tissot calculated the impulsive energy of the air displaced by a cannon-shot. A Russian military surgeon, Pelikan, however, disproved by experiment the exertion of this alleged impulsive force. He so arranged a cylinder and piston capable of registering a pressure of 1 lb., that it occupied a distance of 3 inches from some massive shot which passed by it in succession at a speed of over 950 feet in a second. Despite the closeness of the piston to the line of flight of the shot, it remained unmoved.-Recherches Expérimentales sur les Contusions produites par le Vent du Boulet. Pelikan. Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, t. xlv. p. 802. Elasticity of skin, note 10, p. 138. A full report of this case may be seen in the British Medical Journal of August 20, 1870. States of bones divided by massive gunshot at high speed, note 11, p. 141. At the battle of Inkerman a heavy round shot struck the sergeantmajor of the regiment with which I was serving, and subsequently the captain of the grenadier company, who was standing a little distance behind him. The limb of the sergeant-major was carried completely away from a little above the knee, and an amputation higher up had to be performed in |