Plate 149.
Shrapnel—Plate 149.
LOWER EXTREMITY.
Multiple Gunshot Wound of the Leg.
This plate exhibits the characteristic marking of the metal particles of a shrapnel ball scraped off by contact with the bone, showing the course of the ball in relation to the bone.
The evidence that two shrapnel balls struck the tibia without causing a fracture indicates that the velocity of shrapnel balls is, sometimes at least, very low and that this low velocity may occur at a comparatively short range from the point where the shrapnel balls are discharged from the chamber or near the apex of the “cone of dispersion.” Such multiple wounds are caused before the balls have been so widely dispersed as when they arrive at the base of the “cone of dispersion.”
Plate 150.
