OF FARR[ERY 



103 



only happens on the surface of the body, but 

 aiso in the substance ; for a bone or tendon, 

 &c., may change the direction of a ball, which 

 touches them at all obliquely. Hence it is 

 manifest, how it happens that the track of a 

 gun-shot wound is not always straight, and 

 how the balls sometimes run under the integu- 

 ment for a considerable distance, both in the 

 body and limbs. 



A ball, when it strikes a part of the body, 

 may cause four kinds of injury : first, it may 

 only occasion a contusion, without penetrating 

 the part, on account of its being too much 

 spent, or of the oblique way in which it strikes 

 the surface of the body. Secondly, it may 

 enter and lodge in the surface of a part, in 

 which case, the track of the wound has only 

 one aperture. Thirdly, it may pierce through 

 and through, and then there are two openings, 

 one at the entrance, the other at the exit of 

 the ball : the circumference of the aperture, 

 where the shot entered, is usually depressed ; 

 that of the opening, from which it comes out, 

 elevated : at the entrance, there is commonly 

 more contusion than at the exit of the ball : 

 the former is generally narrower ; the latter, 

 wider, and more irregular, especially when 

 the round smooth figure of the ball has been 

 changed by its having struck a bone. Fourthly, 

 a cannon ball may tear ofi" a whole limb. 



Gun-shot wounds differ very much, accord- 

 ing to the kind of body projected, its velocity, 

 and the nature and peculiarities of the parts 

 injured. The projected bodies are mostly 

 bullets, sometimes cannon balls. From the 

 contusion which the parts sufler, on the violent 

 passage of the ball through them, there is 

 most commonly a part of the solids surround- 

 ing the wound deadened, which is afterwards 

 thrown off in the form of slougii, and which 



prevents such wounds from healing In the 

 first intention, and makes most of them 

 necessarily suppurate. This does not take 

 place equally in every gun-shot wound, nor 

 in every part of the same wound, and the 

 difference commonly arises from the variety 

 in the velocity of the body projected ; for, 

 where the ball has passed with little velocity, 

 which is sometimes the case at their entrance, 

 but still more frequently at the part last 

 wounded, the injury may often be healed by 

 the first intention. 



Foreign bodies are more frequently met 

 with in gun-shot wounds than any others, and 

 are commonly of three kinds. First, pieces of 

 clothing, leather, part of a girth, or other 

 things which the ball may have forced before 

 it. Secondly, the ball itself. Thirdly, loose 

 splinters of bone. It is only when the ball 

 strikes a naked part, does not touch a bone, 

 but goes through and through, that the wound 

 can be free from extraneous matter. Foreian 

 bodies are the cause of numerous unfixvourable 

 symptoms, by irritating sensible parts, and ex- 

 citing pain, infiammation, hemorrhage, and 

 long suppurations, &c. They are ^constantly 

 more productive of such evils, the more 

 uneven, pointed, and hard they are. Hence 

 spicula of bone are always most be dreaded. 



When a ball strikes a bone, the concussion 

 produced is another occasion of bad symptoms 

 to be added to those already mentioned. 

 When slight, its effects are confined to the 

 part injured. Sometimes they extend to the 

 neighbouring joints, in which they produce 

 considerable inflammation, frequently ab- 

 scesses, and, in many cases, stiff joint, 

 rendering the animal ever afterwards useless. 

 From the circumstance of the inner surface 

 of gun-shot wounds being more or less dead- 



