Observations in the military hospitals of Dresden / by Alexander Bruce.

  • Bruce, Alexander, 1842?-1869.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations in the military hospitals of Dresden / by Alexander Bruce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    last company—about sixty-five men—remaining. These were so staggered by their fearful loss that they all threw down their arms, and gave them- selves up as prisoners. The difference in the effect produced is more observable in the change of form the bullet itself undergoes, than in the injury it causes. The peculiarity in the action of the Prussian bullet appears to result from the fact that, instead of its apex coming in contact with the bone &c., it usually strikes somewhat obliquely, and, if it have not sufficient impetus to enable it to pass out on the opposite side, it is found irregularly flattened from side to side, and retaining no trace of its original form; whilst the conical Minie bullets, impinging directly upon their apices, are generally flattened in a direction from before backwards, and almost invariably retain some of their characteristic marks. Fig. 4 represents a very fair specimen of a Prussian bullet after having struck against a bone. It was removed after death from the midst of a number of small fragments of the humerus, against which it had struck. Fig. 4. I have seen Austrian and Saxon bullets retain