Report on gun-shot and sabre wounds of invalids sent to Fort Pitt during the years 1860-61 / by Thomas Longmore.

  • Longmore, Sir Thomas, 1816-1895.
Date:
[1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on gun-shot and sabre wounds of invalids sent to Fort Pitt during the years 1860-61 / by Thomas Longmore. 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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    ing from gun-shot first. The wounds have been classified according to the Tables in the Medical Regulations (Forms N and O, pp. 161, 102). Class 1.—Wounds of the Head. The only injuries of the head from guu-shot admitted during the year were, firstly, a simple flesh wound of the scalp; and, secondly, two cases in whicli wounds of the scalp were complicated with grazing of bone without depression. The projectiles in all three instances were musket ba Is. The wounds were healed, and no ill consequences liad resulted, but the men laboured under other injuries, wliich led to their being invalided. Class 2.—Wounds of the Face. Three cases of gun-shot wounds of the face, received in action, were admitted. One of these was a Colour-Sergeant of the 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, who was wounded by a musket ball at Dellii in 1857- Tlie ball struck his left malar bone, penetrated inwards and downwards to the right side, and was excised from the right side of the neck. Some sequestra of the malar bone afterwards came away. Difficulty of deglutition resulted, and continued till the time of the man's discharge. He had completed twenty-one years' irervice. In a second case, a soldier of the 61st Regiment, Private Charles Southern, of 16 years' service, was struck in the right eye by a piece of shell, at Dellii. Suppuration and disorganization of the eye followed. He was admitted at Fort Pitt in September 1858, an artificial eye was supplied, and lie was sent to duty. One year and ten months afterwards he was again admitted as an invalid, with defective power of vision (presbyopia) of the left eye. Tliei'e was no retinal affection. lie was also disqualified for service by want of power in the left wrist and hand consequent upon exfoliation of the bone from the lower part of the ulna, and adherent cicatrix. At the same time tliat the piece of sliell had struck the eye, anotlier fragment of the projectile had struck the wrist and injured the bone, and this had led to the disqualifi- cation last refeiTed to. The tliird case also occurred in a soldier of the 61st Regiment, a man of 16j years'service, who was wounded at NuzufFghur in August 1857, by a musket-ball, which entered a little below the articulation of the left lower jaw. According to statement, the projectile fractured the bone, passed backwards and downwards, and lodged in tlie muscles of the back of the neck. No indication of the fracture of tlie jaw could be detected at Fort Pitt; the ball could not be felt, nor had any impaired muscular action apparently resulted. The invalid was found fit for service, and discharged to duty. In addition to the three polemical cases above referred to, there were three other gun-shot wounds of the face treated during the year, two being the result of an accidental discharge of one and the same rifle, the other being autophonic. The accidental wounds occurred at ball practice on tlie 18th of July, 1860, to two men. Private William Cotton, and Private John Green, of the 1st Battalion, 4th Regiment. The rifle was fired at a distance of liom eight to ten yards from the men wounded. The ball first struck Private Cotton, entering near the right corner of the mouth, in the upper lip, and was split against the lower jaw, which it fractured extensively. The upper jaw was also much injured. The greater part of the ball then made its exit about an inch below the tragus of the left ear, while a smaller portion lodged in the nape of tlie neck, whence it was excised. The largtT portion of the projectile, after its escape, struck Private Green, who was standing near, at the symphysis of the inferior maxilla, and produced a comminuted fracture of the bone. The hall was discovered on the patient's admission at Fort Fitt, lying beneath tiie skin a little above the ].omum Adanii. When taken out, it was found to be much flattened out, and, lying near it, a small scale of lead, which had become de- tached. Kxtensive necrosis, and separation of many sequestra, occurred in both insbinces, but eventually complete union of bone and a favourable cure were obtained in each. n -2
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