Author : George Husband Baird MacLeod
Publisher : Theclassics.Us
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 39,72 MB
Release : 2013-09
Category : Crimean War, 1853-1856
ISBN : 9781230347103
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V. THE "PECULIARITIES" OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS, AND THEIR GENERAL TREATMENT. In saying that " there is a peculiarity, but no mystery, in gunshot wounds," John Bell has expressed the change of opinion which late times have brought about with regard to the nature of these injuries. It was the mysterious character ascribed by the old surgeons to wounds from so " devilish an engine" as a gun, which so long surrounded them with dread, and made incantations and charms the favorite resource in their treatment. The new philosophy has dispelled the mystery, but left us still to study the eccentricities which so often mark these injuries. The contused appearance and unavoidable sloughing of the walls of the ball's track, the little-suspected but serious destruction of deep parts, and the grave consequences which may ensue from such a wound appear to have been the circumstances that suggested the envenomed nature of gunpowder, and the cautery-like action of its projected ball, as well as the idea which prevailed, that in order to get quit of the injurious influences thus exerted on the wound, it was necessary to pour into it burning oil, or curious tinctures concocted from the most opposite and absurd ingredients, or to smear the part with nauseous grease and "charmed salves." The description of the sensation caused by a gunshot wound in a fleshy part, usually given by the sufferer, is, that it resembles the effect of a smart blow from a supple cane. Some, however, feel as if a red-hot wire were passed through the part. The fracturing or splintering of a bone is always more painful than a flesh wound, and if a joint or larger cavity be penetrated, the pain is still more acute, and the shock still greater--in most cases proportioned to the...