Gunshot Roentgenograms / A Collection of Roentgenograms Taken in Constantinople During the Turko-Balkan War, 1912-1913, Illustrating Some Gunshot Wounds in the Turkish Army

by Clyde S. Ford

PELVIS.

Plate 46.

Rifle—Plate 46.

PELVIS.
Gunshot Wound of the Pelvis, with Lodgment of the Missile in the Abdomen.

The course of the bullet was from behind forward, striking the crest of the ilium, on which it was deflected, and spattering off some lead fragments. The slight penetration indicates a velocity of extremely long range and a striking energy lessened by ricochet.

The irregular outline of the shadow of the projectile shows its deformity, and the blurred outline indicates intra-abdominal movement with respiration.

While the missile, as revealed by its shadow, is not a shrapnel ball, the distribution of lead particles is more suggestive of a shrapnel than of a rifle projectile, and the ballistic conditions are more characteristic of the former than of the latter.

There was no abdominal reaction; the invasion of the abdomen was revealed by the radiograph.

The treatment in such cases is noninterference unless subsequent developments furnish definite indications.