SLEEP OF THE WOUNDED

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2708, 1 March 1916, Page 3

SLEEP OF THE WOUNDED

A WAR SURGEON'S IMPRESSIONS. Surgeon-General Sir Anthony Bowlby, consulting surgeon to the Uritish Expeditionary Force in France, who also served in the South African War, gave tho Bradshaw Lecture on "Wounds in War" at the Royal College Surgeons just before Christmas. Sir. Watson C'heyne, president of tho college, ,was in tho chair. . • Describing the character of the wounds in this war, Sir Anthony said that the wounds were as various as thn projectiles themselves. Tho so-called "normal" bullet-wound, common in the South African War, was quite rare, as even if the entry was small the exit was almost always ragged and large. When a large bone was struck the part looked as though it'had been struck by a large fragment of shell. This was duo to tho fact that the bullet, travelling at the height of its momentum, not only smashed the bone, but also imparted its momentum to the shattered fragments and drove them in every direction, so that the injury to the soft tissues was inflicted in great part by the fragments of bone themselves.' All shell fragments being rough and jagged, tore away parts of the clothing, and carried them into the extreme ( depths of the wound. Nothing was' more remarkable than the immense amount of' destruction wrought by even quite small pieces of a -shell burst by a large charge of a high explosive, as tho wound in the tissues might be ten times as largp as the missile. The lecturer went on to >tpea.k of the condition of the wounded men after a big fight. The most remarkable thing to be observed, he said, in a room filled. witli large numbers of recently wounded men, would be the fact that nearly all of them were asleep, in spite of wounds which one might well snpposo (vould effectually banish sleep. But as the surgeons worked their way from man to man it was only too evident that some of those who were asleep were also suffering from profound collapse, and with hundreds of such men the best chance of life was for them to be kept warm and left absolutely quiet for a period. It was practical}' true that every gunshot wound of this war in France and Belgium wrs more or less infected at the moment of its infliction. Suggestions had been made for the application of an antiseptic agent by the wounded man himself or his comrades as soon as was woundr-d. This would be useless, however, for not only would large quantities of any agent be required for the numerous large wounds, but- it would be obviously useless to employ them

unless the wound could at cnce be protected from further contamination. A school of thought had arisen which asserted that antiseptics were useless as such, but with this he did not agro.