Penetrating gunshot wounds of the chest; always dangerous; statistics
of cases after Toulouse, the Three Days in Paris in 1830, and the
battles of Waterloo and the Sutlej; appearances of the orifices of
entrance and exit; symptoms; balls passing round the chest, but not
penetrating the cavity; lodging in the sternum; enlargement of the
wound sometimes necessary for the removal of foreign bodies, or of
blood; also when the wound is too small to admit the finger-end in
order to ascertain the state of the ribs, etc.; not to be greater than
absolutely requisite; pieces of shell, of a sword or lance, broken off,
and partly lodged in the thorax, or a ball sticking firmly between two
ribs; to be carefully extracted. Gunshot fracture of a rib; removal
of splinters, and of foreign bodies; case; comminuted fracture; wound
of costal cartilage; oblique gunshot wound; the ball running round
between lung and pleura for some distance; the lung sometimes only
slightly bruised, at others distinctly grooved by the ball; a ball
fairly passing through the lung; condition of the organ; symptoms;
effusion of blood; if the lung previously adherent, the cavity of the
chest not opened by the ball, its track only communicating externally;
illustrative cases of Generals Sir Lowry Cole, Sir A. Barnard, the Duke
of Richmond, Major-General Broke, Colonel Dumaresq; condition of the
track of the ball; can be detected after death, but not so during life,
as it does not cause any disturbance of the respiration after recovery
has taken place; case of Mrs. M.; wounds of the upper part of the lung
more dangerous than those of the lower; danger from effusion where the
external wound does not communicate freely with the chest; necessity
for its removal by operation; illustrative cases. pp. 426-442