Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900. George Henry Makins
of penetration. The freed leaden cores do, however, sometimes enter the body, and some of the specimens removed have been referred to the use of expanding bullets. In all the Mauser specimens the longitudinal direction of the fissuring of the mantle is striking.
Fig. 31 represents bullets removed from the body and illustrates types of deformity due to impact with the bones. The deformity resembles in some degree that of the mushroomed lead cores, and also indicates that the shoulder of the cased bullet is its weakest point. Each specimen exhibits shortening and widening without fracture of the mantle, the latter being simply thrown into folds; both bullets were lodged in the thigh after fracturing the femur. The localisation of injury to the fore part of the bullet, and the fact of expansion, allow us to infer that the degree of velocity retained on impact with the bone was comparatively low, and that neither bullet had been exposed to very severe strain.
Two retained Mauser Bullets which had produced comminuted fractures of the femur of moderate severity. Each has given way at the shoulder, but the mantle has developed creases without rupture, and the bullets are correspondingly bent. Both bullets were travelling at a moderate if not low degree of velocity
Fig. 32 is also of a retained bullet in which the fore part of the mantle is very extensively fissured and the core set free. In this the mantle has suffered severely and the leaden core to a less extent. As an apical ricochet it corresponds with the Lee-Metford shown in fig. 36.
Apical Ricochet Mauser Bullet (see text). The 'mushrooming' of the core is moderate, but the destruction of the anterior part of the mantle very considerable
The deformity found in fig. 32 I met with both in retained bullets and also in those which had been fired into sand or anthills. The particular specimen figured was removed from the thigh of a patient wounded at the battle of Belmont. An irregular entry wound was situated over the internal tuberosity of the tibia, while a large fluctuating hæmatoma existed in the lower third of the thigh, at the upper part of which a hard elongated body was palpable. As was so often the case with internal hæmorrhages, the patient's temperature rose high, and on the third day the hæmatoma was incised by Major Coutts, R.A.M.C. The core of the bullet was then found in the blood cavity near the surface, but on introduction of the finger a second body was discovered entangled in the quadriceps muscle, and this proved to be the tattered mantle. I saw similar deformity produced within the body by a bullet, which, entering by a small type aperture in the left ala of the nose, struck the margin of the right malar bone, and lodged beneath the latter. The similarity of this bullet to that seen in the ricochet in fig. 32 was exact. The form is of great importance both on account of the degree of laceration it effects in the track, the presence of two foreign bodies in the wound, and from the fact that it can be produced by making the bullet travel through sand or antheaps, since both the former in the shape of sandbags and the latter in their natural state so often formed the cover to men during the campaign. Bullets of 6.5 mm., such as the Krag-Jörgensen, with steel envelopes apparently break up with great ease in sand.
Fig. 33 shows a form not uncommon when the bullet comes into contact with the ribs. It is produced in bullets travelling at a low rate of velocity and striking by their side. I several times met with it when the bullet was retained, and also without fracture of the rib. In some variety it might occur after impact with any narrow margin of bone, and some importance attaches to the form, since it affords evidence as to the ease with which alterations in symmetry can be produced in Mauser bullets. Again its bent outline favours deviation in the further course of the bullet subsequent to impact with the bone, a result which I observed on more than one occasion.
Grooved Mauser removed from anterior abdominal wall after crossing the ribs. I saw several such removed from the thoracic wall, and am inclined to attribute the grooving to impact with the margin of the ribs
Lastly, the question of actual spluttering or breaking up of the bullets must be considered. It is extraordinary into how many fragments either a Lee-Metford or a Mauser bullet may break up if it strike a hard body while travelling at a high rate of velocity. Fragmentation is exhibited in the skiagram forming the subject of plate XI. p. 194. It is somewhat remarkable how often this occurred when the short hard bones of the metacarpus were struck. With regard to the casing, the separation of small scales of the nickel plating has already been referred to; reference to the skiagrams, plates IX. and XVI., shows how readily the whole thickness of the mantle breaks up into small fragments, even when the bullet is travelling at moderately low degrees of velocity, and this I believe to be a special characteristic of the thin cupro-nickel-plated steel mantles.
Any variety of cased bullet, however, when it strikes against a stone, hard ground, or a bone, may be broken into innumerable fragments. The leaden fragments occasionally show a simple fractured surface, such as is illustrated on a larger scale by the broken shrapnel bullets shown in fig. 96, p. 485. More commonly, however, the fragments, if of any size, appear torn, and if small, are mere spicules. These if of lancet shape often bury themselves in the skin only, while larger ones may penetrate deeply or even perforate. Thus, of a group of three officers standing near a stone on which a bullet struck, all were spattered about the face; most of the fragments lodged in the skin, but one perforated the concha of the ear and bruised the mastoid area, while others caused small jagged cuts. In another instance, both thighs of the patient were spattered after perforation of the clothes, and a large fragment lodged beneath the skin of the penis. A case in which larger fragments perforated and simulated type wounds has already been referred to on p. 44.
The above remarks apply, for the most part, to Mauser bullets only, because my experience of that projectile was far wider than of the Lee-Metford. The only deformed Lee-Metford bullets that I saw removed from the body were of the 'slipper' variety, exactly corresponding to the similarly altered Mausers, and with no fissuring of the mantle. I saw none so freely deformed as the Mausers depicted in figs. 28, 29, 31, and 32.
In spite of diligent search on several battlefields, I was unable to collect many forms of Lee-Metford ricochet, although I found many undeformed bullets. I insert here, therefore, some illustrations I obtained through the kindness of Colonel Hopton, Director of the School of Musketry at Hythe, which are of interest, and in some degree substantiate the impression I formed in South Africa as to the greater stability of the Mark II. Lee-Metford bullet (fig. 34). I am aware that, as meeting a smooth target at right angles, some of these are not strictly comparable to the Mauser bullets forming the subjects of the preceding illustrations, which struck stones, and these mainly by their sides (if we except figs. 31 and 32), but they sufficiently exhibit the characters on which I wish to insist. That they support my opinion is the more probable as, with the exception of the type included above, I am under the impression that the large majority, if not all, of the Mauser bullets which struck stones fairly with their tips were broken to pieces, otherwise I must have met with some among the immense number which I saw. On the top of Tabanyama, for instance, the whole ground was littered at the time of my visit with shattered mantles and leaden cores, deformed almost past recognition.
From Hythe targets. Tendency of cupro-nickel envelope to tear in transverse direction
The specimens depicted in figs. 35 and 36 indicate—(1) a greater malleability on