The surgical aspects of the modern small-bore projectile / by August Schachner.

  • August Schachner
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The surgical aspects of the modern small-bore projectile / by August Schachner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Kohler divides the resistance which a body offers into active and passive. The active is that which is appreciated in a gross way, and the passive that which is considered in a molecular sense. Both, however, are molecular in their character, for to overcome the resistance is to overcome the molecular inertia or destroy its cohesive force. This has been shown in a classical way by Kocher, by firing into a tin box filled with marbles and observing the impressions that the exterior of the box presented as the result of the internal impact {loc. cit, Kohler, “ Die Moderne Kriegswaffen,” p. 152). Specific gravity is another factor, modifying the momentum of the projectile as much as it modifies the resistance of the target. The heavier the projectile, the greater the momentum; the heavier the target, the greater the resistance, other things being equal. Homogeneity modifies the effect, in that the more homo- geneous the body is, the more perfectly is force transmitted. Here, again, experimenters have made the can serve a useful purpose. When filled with water and fired into, a perfect ex- plosive action is obtained. The experiments of Reger, “ Neue Beobachtungen fiber Gewehrschusswunden” (Deutsche Militar Aerztliche Zeitschrift, 1887, Heft 4, Taf. i-iv), have demonstrated the influence which distance plays upon the development of explosive action. Cans filled with fluid and fired upon at a short range showed perfect explosive action, whereas, when fired upon at a long range were simply attended with an open- ing of entrance and exit. Furthermore, he recognized the role which the deformation of the missile played in the production of the wound, and suggested in an address, “ Die Aufforderungen der Humanitat,” loc. cit., Lfihe, “Vorlesungen fiber Kriegs- chirurgie,” the substitution of hard for soft missiles; a sugges- tion which later met with adoption, but for purely technical reasons. Since the amount of moisture which a tissue possesses determines the explosive effect as much as the distance, and owing to the difficulty of determining the limit of the respec- tive zones, the German War Office proposed, in lieu of the division into zones, a classification into “ Nahschiisse,” short range, and “ Fernschiisse,” or long range.
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