PLATE II.

Fig. 1. Near the condyles of the femur the bullet often makes a clean round hole through the cancellated tissue, as is seen in this instance. The amount of splintering is, however, enormous. In the plate is shown, a little way above the internal condyle of the right femur, the point of entry of the ball. The edges of the aperture are quite sharp externally, and bevel off inside, just as one may see them in a pane of plate-glass through which a bullet has been fired. In Plate IV., Fig. 1b, the posterior view of the same specimen is given, and there the very much larger and more irregular aperture of exit may be very distinctly traced, with fragments of bone, somewhat everted, surrounding the edges. The direction of the bullet may thus be ascertained without difficulty from the most cursory examination of the specimen. In the sixth circular of the American Surgeon-General, p. 33, an injury of a very similar character is represented.

Fig. 2. The fragments removed from the shoulder and elbowjoints of the right arm of a Chasseur d'Afrique, Louis St. Aubin, the particulars of whose case, No. XLVI., are narrated on pp. 107 to 110. Several small pieces of the elbow-joint have been shot away or lost.

Fig. 3 shows the effect of a conoidal bullet traversing the right tibia at a high velocity. The hole made by the missile is small, but the splintering is most extensive. The ball has entered on the internal aspect of the bone, and emerged as shown in Fig. 3b, Plate III., on the outer side. There is no great difference in the size of these openings, but the wedge-like power of the projectile is demonstrated by its having so largely split in several directions the upper half of the tibia. This specimen is from one of the cases admitted to Asfeld at a late date. An attempt had been made to preserve the limb, and a certain amount of new material has been thrown out, but secondary amputation at the knee-joint proved necessary, and the case terminated, like many of the rest, fatally.

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