278 PAINLESS WOUNDS. 



that term be preferred to that of " mind "). A dan- 

 gerous animal therefore, in this state may be quite as 

 dangerous to go near as when it was un wounded; so 

 may a human adversary; and a savage beast will 

 probably charge with quite as clear a sense of what 

 it is doing in the wounded, as in the unhurt state; 

 indeed if badly wounded, it will be apt to show less 

 fear of danger, because it believes escape by flight to 

 be impossible. So will a desperate man, who believes 

 capture means death. 



The sense of pain however being to a great extent 

 in abeyance in such cases, we desire to point out to 

 soldiers and others, should they sustain a severe wound, 

 how desirable it is for them that any surgical operation 

 the nature of their case may require should be per- 

 formed at once, and before the shock to the nervous 

 system passes off, and while still under the influence 

 of the excitement of battle. It is also a singular and 

 highly remarkable fact that gunshot wounds in fleshy 

 parts of the body, not involving a bone, may be received 

 without the wounded person being at the time aware of 

 having received a wound, and we cannot doubt that the 

 same thing occurs in the case of animals. " Certainly " 

 (says Captain Orde-Browne, R.A., a contributor to the 

 British Naval Annual) " it has repeatedly happened that 

 men have had small-bore bullets pass through the fleshy 

 parts without being very sure whether they had been hit 

 at all. One case occurred in the coal riots in Yorkshire, 

 in 1893, when a miner had been shot through the flesh 

 of the thigh, and only discovered the nature of the 

 wound when walking about subsequently." * 



* lie Naval Annual for 1895, by Lord Brassey, Part, iii, Section 

 ii, p. ; 36, "Ordinance," by Captain Orde-Browne, R.A. 



