PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 313 



regarded a bullet in the tissues as a diabolical surgical arse- 

 nal. The practice has been abandoned for several reasons. 

 The bail remaining in the tissues may prove quite tolerable, 

 may cause no trouble and may become encysted. Examples 

 of complications occurring as a consequence of a bullet re- 

 maining in the tissues are rare. The observations of Carnet 

 are exceptional. It is not common to let animals die from 

 purvilent infection without trying to evacuate the abscess 

 producing it. MuUer has seen a horse that retained a ball, 

 which had slowly descended from the lumbar region to the 

 umbillicus, for ten years without causing any complications. 

 The Journal of Comparative Pathology records the case of 

 a cat whose eye was pierced by the shot of an air pistol. 

 The shot lodged in the retina, where it became encysted 

 by a thick sac. As analogous instances are numerous, it 

 is evident that bullets when antiseptic and when the skin at 

 the point of entrance is clean, may be perfectly tolerated 

 by the tissues. 



If the bullet does not encyst it causes suppuration and 

 produces an abscess. The seat of the abscess indicates the 

 seat of the bullet, which could not have been located when 

 the course is tortuous. The abscess, when lanced, will eject 

 the bullet as soon as the pus is evacuated. It is bad practice 

 to act differently, as the search for the bullet is always pain- 

 ful ; it may aggravate the injury the organs have already 

 sustained, reopen obtttrated vessels and obstruct possible 

 prompt cicatrization of the tract, without taking into ac- 

 count that the search is so often without results. This is 

 especially the case when the tract is tortuous and an aponeu- 

 rosis has been pierced. Aponeurotic structures immediate- 

 ly reclose after being divided by a bullet. Do not, therefore, 

 search for foreign bodies in gunshot wounds unless they 

 can be clearly felt through the integument, but leave them 



