A Treatise on Gunshot Wounds

A Treatise on Gunshot Wounds

Gunshot wounds consist of injuries from missiles projected by the force of explosion. As the name implies, this class of wounds is ordinarily restricted to injuries resulting from fire-arms; but it should be remembered that wounds possessing the same leading characteristics may result from objects impelled by any sudden expansive force of sufficient violence. Injuries from stones, in the process of blasting rocks, or from fragments of close vessels burst asunder by the elastic power of steam, offer familiar examples of wounds of a like nature with those from gunshot. In the following article, however, gunshot wounds will be considered as they are met with in the operations of warfare. From the earliest time of the application of gunpowder to implements of war, down to the present day, the wounds inflicted by its means have excited the most marked interest among surgeons; nor can this be wondered at, when the immensely superior energy of this agent in comparison with all the mechanical powers previously in use for hostile purposes, and the terrible nature of its effects on the human frame, are remembered. By its introduction the whole aspect of war was changed, in a great degree, by the distance at which opposing forces were enabled to contend with[10] each other; just as, in our day, the nature of battle seems destined to undergo another change from the increased range and precision of fire obtained through the general use of rifled weapons. But though the alterations now being made in the qualities of fire-arms are of the utmost importance to those whose business and especial study is the art of war, to the army surgeon the interest they excite is chiefly limited to the degree of injury and destruction inflicted by them as compared with weapons of a less perfect kind; while to the surgeons employed at the time of the introduction of gunpowder, the wounds were wholly new in their nature as well as degree. Recollecting the ignorance which then prevailed in all departments of science and art, it can excite no surprise that the new engines of war, with the flame and noise accompanying their discharge, were regarded with superstitious terror; nor that surgeons for a long time found an explanation of the sloughing severity of the injuries they inflicted, and of their difficult cure, in the poisonous nature of gunpowder, or of the projectiles which had been acted upon by it, or in the burning effects of these latter from heat acquired in their rapid flight through the air. Unfortunately, these erroneous views did not end with the theories from which they started, but led to treatment which only aggravated the evils inflicted by the new weapons, and interrupted the progress of the healing action, which nature would otherwise have established. The wound being regarded as a poisoned wound, it was only by a long and tedious process of suppuration that the poison could be hoped to be got rid of from the surface, and prevented from entering the system of the patient. The irritative fever, the wasting and emaciation, and all the other results of the protracted cure of the injury were so many evidences of the indirect effect of the poison working in the frame; just as the constitutional shock at the time of the wound, the loss of vitality along the surface in the track of a small projectile, or of the tissues laid bare by the passage of the cannon-ball[11] were regarded as evidences of its direct influence. On looking back at the works of successive writers on this class of injuries, the reader is surprised that the improvement in their treatment has been so gradual and slow; and cannot fail to observe that the chief impediment to a more rapid amelioration of the system pursued has been the prevailing idea of the necessity of delaying the tendency of nature to close the wound, in order that the supposed poison might be eliminated from the constitution. The openings of entrance and exit and track of the ball were incised; the wound dilated by tents or other means, and terebinthinates, or even boiling oil, poured into it; irritating compounds and ointments applied where superficial dressings were practicable; and it was only after the wound was considered to be fully purged of its venom and foul humors by the extensive suppurative action thus kept up, that cicatrization was permitted to be established. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 47310
Author: Longmore, T. (Thomas)
Release Date: Nov 7, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English