Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on gunshot wounds / by T. Longmore. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE CHEST. These always form a large proportion of the injuries from warfare, both in the open held and more especially in sieges, whore the upper part of the body is chiefly exposed. Dr. Scrivc's returns show that the proportion of chest to other wounds was 1 in 12 in the trenches, and 1 in 20 in ordinary engagements. In the British forces they arc returned as 1 in 10 among the officers during the whole war, and nearly 1 in 17 among the men, from 1st April, 1855, to the end of the war. The ample space of this region, ami the exposed surface it offers as a target toward the enemy, would lead to an anticipation of such results. The serious complications which ensue when the cavity of the chest is penetrated, and the dangerous consequences of wounds of its viscera, cause the proportionate mortality to be very great. The British returns show that among the officers treated for these wounds )!1] per cent, and among the men 28y'g per cent. died. Out of 603 wounded men who returned to England from the late Indian mutiny, the number who had received wounds of the chest was only 19. In many instances men thus wounded do not live long enough to come under treatment, but die on the field of action from penetration of the heart, hemorrhage, suffocation, or shock; and the proportion of chest wounds returned as killed in action, or as died under treatment, will constantly vary according to circumstances connected with the nature of the military operations, and the opportu- nities of early removal from the field to hospital. Gunshot wounds of the chest may conveniently be divided for study into two classes, viz., non-penetrating and pene* trating. Non-penetrating wounds become subdivided into simple contused wounds of the soft parietes; contused ami lacerated wounds; the same accompanied witli injury to bones or cartilage; and, lastly, those complicated with lesion of some of the contents of the chest, the pleura remaining](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21137560_0084.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
