TREATISE

UPON

PENETRATING WOUNDS

OF

THE CHEST.

BY

PATRICK FRASER, M.D.,

KNIGHT OF THE ANCIENT AND MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE TOWER AND SWORD;
HOLDER OF THE CRIMEAN MEDAL AND SEBASTOPOL CLASP, AND THE TURKISH WAR MEDAL, FOR
SERVICES IN THE CRIMEA; LATE PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY TO HER MOST FAITHFUL
MAJESTY QUEEN DONNA MARIA OF PORTUGAL; LATE STAFF PHYSICIAN TO THE ARMY
IN THE CRIMEA; PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND SOCIETY;
PHYSICIAN TO THE LONDON DISPENSARY; AND PHYSICIAN

TO THE LONDON HOSPITAL.

T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET.

MY LORD,

The act of dedication of this Treatise, which is founded upon actual observations made by me while I served in the Camp General Hospital before Sebastopol, is very appropriate.

Your Lordship was called to the important post of Secretary of State for War, at a period when the combined effects of privation, disease, and other disasters, had severely tried the endurance and the fortitude of the British soldiers engaged in the Crimean war.

Your Lordship had then the wisdom to propose, and the firmness to execute, the plan by which a staff of civil medical practitioners was dispatched to Scutari and the Crimea, to assist in the treat

ment of the sick and wounded men of the British army. The mission was executed with fidelity and zeal; and your Lordship has been pleased to express your satisfaction for the services rendered.

During your Lordship's administration, a healthful, and thereby invincible, British army arose ! Victory and triumph became the reward.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord,
Your Lordship’s humble and obedient servant,

PATRICK FRASER, M.D.

London, April 1859.

TO THE READER.

This Treatise was originally written with the intention of having it read before the Fellows of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society. This arrangement was frustrated; but the learned Council honoured me by publishing an abstract of the Treatise in the Proceedings of the Society.

Having considered that a certain value is justly attached to cases observed in the field, I thought it would be a pity that all record of the cases which had passed under my own care should be

lost.

I present the cases, with observations, to my professional brethren as an instalment only, to be added to, amended, and improved by future and more talented observers, when again is sounded “ War’s deadly blast”.