RIFLE BULLET WOUNDS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2330, 11 December 1914, Page 3

RIFLE BULLET WOUNDS

COMPARATIVE HAEMLESSNESS. (By V. J. Youmane, in the New York "Post"). ' The modern military bullet is STich a small thing and travels ,at so high a rate of speed that it punches a relatively insignificant holo in any soft body in its', path. Unless the soldier is touched in some vital spot, a plain bullet wound ,on the modern battlefield often' proves a surprisingly mild ''njury. Sometimes within a couple of weeks a man sh<jt "through and through" is back on his 'feet again, if not actually back on the lighting line. He is,' if the-surgeons don't tinker with him too much—don't poke around, ; n the wound with excess of zeal, looking for trouble. At a recent meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Inspector-Goneral Edmoiia Delorme read a paper on the treatment of battle wounds, in which emphasis was particularly placed on the .need for a. masterly inactivity among surgeons in the field hospitals. General Delorme was a military surgeon /in the Franco-Prussian War' of 1870, and has devoted'his life to military surgery, on which he has written a-standard textbook. He speaks, with authority. The surgeon, ho said, should adopt the most conservative methods in tho great majority of military wounds: "indeed, such methods must be applied in practically every case of bullet wound." This conservative method means wrapping the wjound in antiseptic (or aseptic) dresßingß itnd letting it

alone otherwise. In Dr. Delorme'g experience the fatality from bullet wounds is'far less if they are let alone. He even goes so far as to advise the same treatment for bullet wounds of the abdomen, which' are especially serious bewiUMj of the probability that one 01 several coils of intestine have been perforated. In civil life, he says, the advisability of operation in such cases is open to . argument,' but .in battlefield wounds there should be no question of operation (except. perhaps ; in rare contingencies). .''The experience of all recent wars," to quote the dootor's own words, "is against such pnoe in the Transvaal, Mancliuria, and the Balkans. In the Transvaal, even when abdominal operations were carried out by the most eminent surgeons, under the best conditions, it was found that those who were operated on yielded a smaller percentage of recoveries than tho oases which were not subjected to operation." i Tho treatment recommended for abdominal wounds received on the battlefield is absolute repo6e in a half-sitting position, abstention from food and drink for several: days, injections of artificial serum,' and the administration of opium. . The sorely harassed and terribly stiained field surgeon has' probably received this highly authoritative opinion with delight. After such vast engagements of troops as are occurring in the present European war, tho military Burgeons must bo literally overwhelmed with the flood of wounded pouring back from the front. Tho elimination of simple bullet wounds, even of tho abdominal region, from the operating field, and tho substitution of so simplo and rapid a procedure' as the application of clean dressings'means'at, least a doubling of the number ' of patients each surgeon can attend.