372 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVE11Y. 



when lie proceeded to inspect the bloody field of Magenta, and the attitudes 

 of the slain; a melancholy but not a useless duty. 



Dr. Armaiul observed that a great number of the dead preserved, as nearly 

 as may be, the same attitudes in which they had been when the messengers 

 of death struck them, a proof that they had passed from life to death 

 without agony, without convulsions. Those struck in the head generally lay 

 with the face and abdomen flat upon the ground, a position which the death- 

 stiffness had not changed, holding, for the most part, their weapons still 

 grasped in their hands. 



Dr. Armand mentions a peculiarity often attendant upon wounds of the 

 head, in which the patient thinks himself by no means dangerously hurt, 

 although sometimes he dies, one might say, spontaneously, or by surprise. 

 During the battle of Solferino, a soldier, wounded in the head by a ball, 

 entered the ambulance, and was dressed by Dr. Lambert. The ball had per- 

 forated the skull and lodged in the cerebral mass; nevertheless, the patient's 

 intelligence was perfect; he made light of his wound; lay down, having his 

 lighted pipe in his mouth, Avith his head raised upon his knapsack against 

 the wall, where he was found afterwards, with his pipe still in his mouth. 

 He had expired without a movement or noise. Dr. Armand details a simi- 

 lar case, that of a sergeant-major, whom Dr. Lambert (Dr. Armand's assist- 

 ant) dressed in the Crimean war. The soldier smoked on for a dozen of 

 days after having been wounded; and, having lighted his pipe for the last 

 time, died suddenly, keeping it still in his mouth. These cases are, there- 

 fore, attested by at least two medical witnesses. 



Dr. Armand says that soldiers who receive their death-wounds in the heart 

 fall and rest in the same manner as those do who are killed by injury of the 

 brain, though the death is not so instantaneous but that it may allow an atti- 

 tude, which, so to speak, is active. We have seen, among others, a Zouave 

 struck fairly in the chest, who was brought together, or doubled upon his 

 musket, as if taking a position to charge bayonet, his face full of energy, as 

 if advancing, with an attitude more menacing than that of a lion. 



On the other hand, an Austrian, who had died by haemorrhage from a ball 

 which had divided the crural vessels, whose agony had been of some dura- 

 tion, as proven by the blood in which he was bathed, presented the attitude 

 of supplication ; he lay on his back a little bent to the right, his face and 

 eyes turned towards the heavens, both hands joined together, with the 

 fingers interlaced and contracted. The man died in the attitude of prayer. 

 In fact, religious ideas appeared to have prevailed quite extensively among 

 the Austrian soldiers, as well as among the Russians in the campaign in tho 

 Crimea. 



In wounds of the abdomen, as the agony was more or less prolonged, the 

 pains were intolerable, attended with vomiting and hiccough; the face of 

 the corpse was generally found contracted, the hands and forearms crossed 

 and closed upon the abdomen, the body doubled upon itself, and resting ou 

 the side. 



At Ponte Vecchio di Masrenta, a Hungarian hussar, killed (as was his 

 horse), remained nearly in the saddle lying upon the right side, having the 

 point of his sabre in advance, in the position of a horseman when charging. 

 He had roses still fresh in his tolpak, his forehead pierced with a ball; his 

 horse was riddled with shot in the head, and both had died simultaneously. 

 This case was witnessed by Dr. A. Renard. Dr. Armand relates a parallel 

 case which occurred to im Austrian artilleryman. 



