There is a record of a man of twenty-five, a soldier in the
Chinese war of 1860, who, in falling from his horse, was
accidentally transfixed by a bayonet. The steel entered his back
two inches to the left of the last dorsal vertebra, and
reappeared two inches to the left and below the umbilicus; as
there was no symptom of visceral wound there were apparently no
injuries except perforation of the parietes and the peritoneum.
The man recovered promptly.
Ross reports a case of transfixion in a young male aborigine, a
native of New South Wales, who had received a spear-wound in the
epigastrium during a quarrel; extraction was impossible because
of the sharp-pointed barbs; the spear was, therefore, sawed off,
and was removed posteriorly by means of a small incision. The
edges of the wound were cleansed, stitched, and a compress and
bandage applied. During the night the patient escaped and joined
his comrades in the camp, and on the second day was suffering
with radiating pains and distention. The following day it was
found that the stitches and plaster had been removed, and the
anterior wound was gaping and contained an ichorous discharge.
The patient was bathing the wound with a decoction of the leaves
of the red-gum tree.
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