"Many injuries to the brain from bullets of moderate size and low
velocity do not cause more than a temporary loss of
consciousness, and the subjects are seen by the surgeon, after
the lapse of half an hour or more, apparently sound of mind.
These are the cases in which the ball has lost its momentum in
passing through the skull, and has consequently done little
damage to the brain-substance, excepting to make a passage for
itself for a short distance into the brain. It is apparently well
established that, in the case of the rifle-bullet of high
velocity, and especially if fired from the modern military
weapons using nitro-powders, and giving an enormous initial
velocity to the bullet, the transmission of the force from the
displaced particles of brain (and this rule applies to any other
of the soft organs as well) to the adjacent parts is such as to
disorganize much of the tissue surrounding the original track of
the missile. Under these circumstances a much slighter wound
would be necessary to produce unconsciousness or death than in
the case of a bullet of low velocity, especially if it were light
in weight. Thus I have recorded elsewhere an instance of instant
death in a grizzly bear, an animal certainly as tenacious of life
as any we have, from a mere furrow, less than a quarter of an
inch in depth, through the cortex of the brain, without injury of
the skull excepting the removal of the bone necessary for the
production of this furrow.
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