Volume 3

The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer.

Date:
1835-37
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAPTER II. OF THE TREATMENT OF GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. XT has been hitherto recommended, and universally practised by almost every surgeon, to enlarge immediately upon their being received, or as soon as possible, the external orifice of all gun-shot wounds made by musket-balls. So much has this practice been recommended, that they have made no discrimination between one gun-shot wound and another. This would appear to have arisen, and to be still continued, from an opinion that gun-shot wounds have a something peculiar to them, and of course are different from all other wounds, and that this peculiarity is removed by the opening. I own that I do not see any peculiarity. The most probable way of accounting for the first introduction of this practice is from the wound in general being small, and nearly of a size from one end to the other ; also the frequency of extraneous bodies being forced into these wounds by the ball, or the ball itself remaining there; for the way in which these wounds are made is by the introduction of an extraneous body, which is left there, if it has not made its way through, so that the immediate cause of the wound makes a lodgement for itself, often carrying before it clothes, and even the parts of the body wounded, such as the skin, &c. From hence it would naturally appear at first view that there was an immediate necessity to search after those extra- neous bodies, which very probably led the surgeon to do it; and in gene- ral the impossibility of finding them, and even of extracting them when found, without dilatation, gave the first idea of opening the mouths ot the wounds. But from experience they altered this practice in part, and became not so desirous of searching after these extraneous bodies ; for they found that it was oftener impossible to find them than could at first have been imagined, and when found, that it was not possible to extract them, and that afterwards these bodies were brought to the skin bv the parts themselves, and those that could not be brought to the ex- ternal surface in this way were such as gave little or no trouble after- wards, such as balls. Yet they altered this practice only so far as re- spected the attempt to extract extraneous bodies; for when they found from experience that it was not necessary nor possible to extract these