STEEL HELMETS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1917, Page 8

STEEL HELMETS.

THE VALUE AS LIFE-SAVERS. REMARKABLE FIGURES. Discussing the value of the steel helmet in battle, a French medical writer in La Nature says that out of 55 cases of head injury it was found that 42 occurred in soldiers who wore no helmet. Among the 42 there were 23 fractured skulls. The remaining W cases suffered from severe scalp wounds. Among the 13 cases which wore helmets there was not a single fracture of the skull; eight showed some concussion effects, and five had slight wounds. A considerable number of the unprotected eases died; none of the protected died. The most significant fact which has emerged since the helmet was introduced was emphasised by Dr. Uoussy at the Academy of Medicine. He said that the percentage of eases showing wounds in the head had increased. The reason was, of course, that the number of sudden deaths from the cause had markedly decreased.

A French writer points out that of 479 abdominal wounds 33-2 were caused by shrapnel and pieces of shell having a low velocity. An abdominal protection would save these cases.

Again, among 15 penetrating wounds of the lung, two only showed exit orifices for the bullet or piece of shell, i.e., in 13 cases out of la the projectile had not enough force behind it to drive it through the body tissues. A breastplate would have saved those wounds. The mortality from these low-velocity shrapnel wounds is said to be about ten times greater than from bullet wounds which penetrate. The conclusions are arrived at in La* Nature that as threefourths of war wounds which are received for treatment are now due to shrapnel and pieces of shell at low velocity, and as these wounds are very fatal on account of the infection and blood-pois-oning following them, it will be worth while to consider the question of protec-, tion for all these parts.