Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Gunshot injuries / by Sir Thomas Longmore. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
638/764 page 592
![exposed than the back under the circumstances named. Accordinf? to the observations noted in the last table of this chapter, ii appears that the target area presented by .the front of a well-pro- portioned man, 6 ft. in height, is a little over 1,000 square inches. Target areas of particular regions of the body.—What is ot most interest, however, to military surgeons, is the amount of target surface presented by particular parts of the body, or, in other words, the relative exposure of its different regions to be struck by projectiles in battle, supposing the missiles to be equally distri- buted. It is obvious that if one region presents double the target area of another, the expectation will be, all other things being equal, that, out of a given number of wounds, there will be twice as many in the former as there will be in.the latter region. It ap]Deared to me that the required information might he obtained, with approximate accuracy, if a careful measiu'ement were made of certain drawings of the human frame of acknowledged excellence. I therefore selected the following for the pm-pose, and I was interested in observing how closely the results of the several measurements agreed with each other. Relative regional areas in di-awings by Albinus.—There are two classical drawings of the human frame by Albinus'—better known in this country, perhaps, through the copies of them by Andrew Bell*—the one exhibiting the external form and muscular de- velopment of the full front, the other, of the side aspect of the body. These drawings have been accepted as standards of just propor- tions, and anatomical correctness. The relative amounts of super- ficial area presented by the principal divisions of these drawings were measured; both drawings being divided into squares, and each square being one-hundredth of a square inch in dimensions. The following was the result obtained with the figure presenting a full front:— Figure, full front. Part of Body Space Occupied Absolutely in y^tbs of Squui-e Inches Relatively in per- centages of the -whole Surface Head and Face Neck Trunk (Chest and Abdomen) . Upper Extremities. . . Lower Extremities. Total.... 167 73 902 690 1378 5'2 per cent. 2-3 „ 28-1 „ 21-5 „ . 42-9 „ Square Inches. 32-10 100-0](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21511421_0638.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
