The New Zealand War of 1863-64-65 : special report on wounds and injuries received in battle / by Inspector-General Mouat.

  • Mouat, James, 1815-1899.
Date:
[between 1860 and 1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The New Zealand War of 1863-64-65 : special report on wounds and injuries received in battle / by Inspector-General Mouat. 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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    Amputation of the Toes. This operation was performed in one case where all the toes of one foot were injured by a musket bullet. Excision of the Head of the Humerus. During the war this operation has been performed nine times on account of ^^T °f gun-shot fracture of the head of the humerus, either with penetration of the -t^ad °J joint in the first instance, or on account of secondary implication of the joint, umerus- resulting from fracture close -to it. In no instance has death followed, and in all the cases it has proved in the highest degree successful. The wounds made in the operation have healed well and sufficiently soon, and useful limbs have been retained. In the first case, owing to some constitutional peculiarity, and perhaps to some unsuspected length to which the Assuring in the shaft of the humerus extended, the healing of the wound has been delayed ; but there is no doubt of the operation also being eventually successful. The frequency of the occurrence of wounds shattering the head of the humerus, and the necessity thus arising for operative interference, has consti- tuted the most peculiar and special feature of the hospital practice here. There is no doubt but that a few years ago all the limbs thus injured would have been amptuated at the shoulder-joint; and as little that, instead of the small mortality from operations which I have recorded as occurring in this war, that a much larger per-centage would have fallen to be noted. Resection of injured joints cannot be called a new operation; but it is still one which, compared with the ruder proceeding of amputation, is one of a comparative novelty, and thus a record of the cases in which it has been performed is not without its value, and therefore the following remarks, made after a careful perusal of the subjects of the operation recorded in the hospital books, and a personal acquaintance with the details of all the cases during the course of their treatment, may be permissible. Eight of the operations were secondary ones, performed after the coming on of much swelling and the occurrence of severe febrile disturbance. One operation only was performed within 24 hours after the receipt of the injury.
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