Sword wound

“ Then he determined to lead the assault in person, and though suffering from a severe wound in his left hand, he tied his shield to his left arm, and, brandishing his sword, called upon his men to follow. ”

“ As it is my object to exclude as much as possible professional details of my labours at the bedside, description of wounds, and the like, I shall again merely mention particulars of a few cases, in order to give my reader a general idea of the nature of the wounds received by soldiers in battle.
Take No. 6, for instance, as I find it in my notes. It was a very bad case. A German soldier of the Line had received a bullet wound behind and below the calf of his leg, which passed up, without touching the bone, behind his knee joint, beneath the muscles of the thigh to the joint of the hip. ”

“ The body lay at full length upon its back; the hair was clotted with blood and standing out in every direction; the teeth were clenched in agony; the eyes glassy and open, as if glaring upon the moon that shone in mid-heaven above. One arm had been cut off at the elbow, while a large incision in the left breast showed where the heart had been torn out, to satisfy the vengeance of an inhuman enemy. There were shot wounds and sword cuts all over the body, and other mutilations made by the zopilotes and wolves. ”

“ Once more he felt the actual and profound sensation of the shudder already experienced on the tragic day, when he had wished to raise, with his own hands, the black veil spread over the dead man's face, and when, through the linen wrappings, he believed he could see the ravages of the wound, the horrible ravage made by the explosion of the firearm, by the impact of the ball against the bone of the skull, against that brow so delicate and so pure. ”

“ And there was great slaughter, and laying low in graves, and many comely men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another ”

“ Wounds from grape-shot are always of a grave character, not only from the extent of the flesh wound, but also because, from their large diameter and weight, the nerves and vessels of the part struck are less likely to escape injury, if not destruction, than in wounds from the smaller shot projected in canister or spherical case. ”

“ No gun-shot wound, at least none of importance, appeared in any part. There was, indeed, a bullet-hole in the left shoulder, and, as it seemed, very recently inflicted: but it was bound up with leaves and vulnerary herbs, in the usual Indian way, showing that it must have been received at some period anterior to the attack which had robbed the warrior of life. The gashes across the ribs were the only other wounds on the body; that on the head, made by a hatchet, was evidently the one that had caused the warrior's death. ”

“ Men with arms in slings; men with trousers torn away at the knee, and bandaged legs; men with brow, face, mouth, or [Pg 152] throat swathed; men with no shirts, but a broad swathe around the chest or stomach—each bandage grotesquely pictured with human figures printed to show how the wound should be bound, on whatever part of the body the bullet entered. ”

“ Two of these conditions were of general interest: the great destruction of the tissues in most wounds, and the infection of the wounds, which was almost universal.
Where a wound has been produced by a large fragment of shell, one expects to see considerable damage; in fact, a whole limb may be torn off, or death may be instant from some terrible injury to the body. But where the object of the enemy is the injury of individuals, and not the destruction of buildings, they often use shrapnel, and the resulting wounds resemble those from the old smooth-bore guns of our ancestors. ”

“ Open wounds are divided into incised, lacerated, punctured and gunshot wounds. Incised wounds are made by any sharp instrument and have their edges evenly cut. In these wounds there is usually free haemorrhage, as the vessels are cleanly divided. Lacerated wounds are those in which the edges of the wound are torn irregularly. Such injuries occur frequently from accidents with machinery or blunt instruments, or from bites by animals. ”

“ When a ball does not penetrate, but simply inflicts a contusion, the pain is described to be more severe than where an opening has been made by it.
[45]
Shock.—When a bone is shattered, a cavity penetrated, an important viscus wounded, a limb carried away by a round shot, pain is not so prominent a symptom as the general perturbation and alarm which supervene on the injury. This is generally described as the “shock” of a gunshot wound. The patient trembles and totters, is pale, complains of being faint, perhaps vomits. His features express anxiety and distress. ”

“ Some cutting weapons, like an axe, act as much by means of their weight as by their cutting edges. Wounds caused by such weapons we can often distinguish by the following signs: The edges are not as smooth as is the case with a cutting instrument, and they may be more or less lacerated and show signs of contusion. The wound is often deep in comparison with its length, and the ends of the wound abrupt instead of slanting up from the bottom to the surface. The section of resisting organs and the impression of the edge of the weapon on the bone are further signs of the use of such a weapon. ”

“ One of these cuts is made for each enemy that has been slain, and some distinguished warriors have their legs absolutely striped with scars. As the wound is a tolerably deep one, and as ashes are plentifully rubbed into it, the scar remains for life, and is more conspicuous than it would be in an European, leaving a white track upon the dark skin. ”

“ As a rule, the wounds were trifling, and the great skill with which the shields were used made the risk of injury to any vital part very slight. Sometimes, however, a lance might be driven home into a man’s chest, or a vigorously wielded sword or club might fracture a combatant’s skull and stretch him unconscious on the ground. ”

“ When loss of blood occurs without the lung being wounded, the hemorrhage is probably proceeding from a wound of one of the intercostal arteries, which has been torn by the sharp ends of fractured bone. ”

“ In cases of fatal wounding, among the points to be noted, which will help to decide the question, are the situation, direction and extent of the wound, the position in which the body and any weapon may be found, together with the presence and distribution of any blood marks and the signs of a struggle. In wounds caused by firearms the injury, if suicidal, is usually situated in a vital and accessible part of the body, the temple, mouth, and chest being the favourite situations ”

“ Some rushed round the fallen man and raised him up, gazing on his face, or striving to stanch the bleeding of a small wound on the right side, which would have seemed of no great importance, had not the torrent of gore which poured from it told how deep the avenging blade had gone. ”

“ And why is a wound, or death, from an explosive bullet worse than a wound from the most ordinary bullet or splinter, inflicted on a very tender part? The suffering in that case also reaches the utmost limit, and is followed by just the same death as results from any other weapon. ”

“ The presence of blood, hair, and other substances on the weapon used, or probably used, is a matter of some importance. Blood is not necessarily found on the weapon used to inflict a mortal wound, especially in the case of blunt instruments. In stab-wounds, too, the vessels may be compressed by the blow or the weapon may be wiped as it were on withdrawal by the elasticity of the skin and by the clothing, except for a thin yellowish film. ”

“ There are always to be found in this country those who are singularly dexterous in the use of the swords that I have mentioned. They use them for performing amputations in their own barbarous way. If mortification from an ulcer or any other cause seems to be setting in, so that a hand or a foot is deemed incurable, the limb is fastened to a block of wood, and with one blow of the sword the part affected is severed almost within a hair’s breadth of the part that is sound. ”

“ Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a spectator was an occasional victim,—the end of a broken sword flew live or ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued instantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths every year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the wounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the way of over-exertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that it cannot be arrested. ”

“ We found the inside partially destroyed by the explosive shell, which had shattered the lungs, but there was an old wound still open where a bullet had entered the chest, and missing the heart and lungs in an oblique course, it had passed through the stomach, then through the cavity of the body beneath the ribs and flank, and had penetrated the fleshy mass inside the thigh. In that great resisting cushion of strong muscles the bullet had expended its force, and found rest from its extraordinary course of penetration. ”

“ The horn, filthy with blood and excrement, very often broken at the ends by blows into small splinters, broke the flesh, lacerated it, perforated it, so that it was at the same time a deep penetrating wound, and a crushing bruise, but all the same these awful wounds were cured far more easily than those of daily life. ”

“ Men are crushed to death, probably without a wound, just by this hellish impact. The shouts and yells emitted are deafening. There is an unearthly clashing of steel weapons on bronze armor. Every now and then a shrill, sharp cry tells where a soldier has been stabbed, and has gone down in the press, probably trampled to death instantly. ”

“ When used in stabbing, the weight was not sufficiently great, nor was the blade large enough to inflict a fatal wound; when hurled, the weapon was often lost through the animal escaping with it sticking fast, and being seen no more. ”

“ The chief are—1st, spherical, as cannon-balls, grape, musket-shot, and shells; 2d, cylindro-conoidal, as balls belonging to rifled cannon and rifled muskets; 3d, irregular, but generally bounded by linear and jagged edges, as fragments of shells and splinters.
A gunshot wound, whether received from a direct or indirect projectile, may be complicated by the entrance of extraneous bodies of various kinds, most commonly portions of the cloth or buttons of the dress worn by the person wounded. ”

“ Whenever they are wounded in any encounter, or bruised by any accident, they apply a sort of yellow root to the wound, and fast for some time. When their head achs, they open a vein in that part with a stone lancet. When they want to glue the points of their arrows to the shaft, they strike their nose till it bleeds, and use the blood as glue.
Murder is not punished amongst them, for they have no judge. ”

“ I see, lad, the knaves have barked your arm!” added the scout, taking up the limb of the patient sufferer, across which a deep flesh wound had been made by one of the bullets; “but a little bruised alder will act like a charm. In the meantime I will wrap it in a badge of wampum! You have commenced the business of a warrior early, my brave boy, and are likely to bear a plenty of honorable scars to your grave. I know many young men that have taken scalps who cannot show such a mark as this. ”

“ When the child comes near the executioner, his sword trembles in its scabbard—an unmistakable sign that it thirsts for her blood. The huntsman's head, when it is cut off, flies towards her, and the teeth grip her frock. ”

“ The edges and angles are not smooth and even enough for a stab-wound with a knife, for the edges are torn and not cut, and a stab-wound would be the only form of wound with which we would be likely to confuse it. Furthermore, the direction of the long axis of the wound parallel to that of the skin fibres in the region in which it occurs and the very slight retraction of the edges distinguish it from a stab-wound. By these signs we can almost always distinguish such wounds from stab-wounds, and thus tell the form of the weapon used. ”

“ Pain.—As an initial symptom the occurrence of pain varied greatly with the idiosyncrasy of the patient, and according to the circumstances under which the wound was received. Some individuals are remarkably insensitive, and in these the fact of a wound being a gunshot injury in no way altered their habitual insensibility, but in persons of what may be termed the normal type in this particular great differences were observed. ”

“ The wounds produced by shrapnel bullets are similar to those caused by the lead bullets of the infantry weapons of the past. When the bullet strikes normally to the surface, it produces a wound circular at the point of impact and considerably enlarged at the point of exit; bones are frequently shattered ”

“ Penetrating wounds may exist without wound, or with wounds of one or more of the viscera of this cavity. Among the more serious complications with which the latter may be accompanied is the lodgment of the projectile or other foreign bodies, as of fragments of bone, within the chest. As wounds of the heart and great vessels are almost invariably at once fatal, and as the organs of respiration occupy the greater part of the cavity of this region, it is in reference to the latter that the treatment of chest wounds is chiefly concerned. ”