Corporal Dunleary, of the 69th Regiment, was wounded on the 16th of June, 1815, at Quatre Bras, by a musket-ball, which entered the thorax, fracturing the seventh rib on the fore part of the right side, and lodged. He said he had lost a large quantity of blood from the mouth, and some from the wound, between that and the 19th, when he was brought to the hospital in Brussels. The pulse was then quick and hard, respiration difficult and anxious, and a bloody discharge issued from the wound on every respiration; bowels confined since the accident; was bled to forty-four ounces; saline purgatives, with calomel, antimony, and opium, were given until the 29th of June, when the wound discharged good pus. From this time, at different periods for six weeks, he lost ninety-two ounces more blood, being strictly placed on milk diet. Several pieces of rib exfoliated. He was sent home on the 31st of August, declaring himself quite as well as ever he had been in his life; the ball remaining undiscovered.
A soldier of the Fusilier Brigade was struck by a musket-ball on the right side of the front of the chest, at the battle of Albuhera; it entered between the fifth and sixth ribs, passed through the lungs, and lodged. Three days afterward, when the first symptoms were in part subdued, he complained of pain in a particular spot, nearly opposite to where the ball had entered, at which part something could be felt deeply seated. An incision being made, the ball was found lodged in the intercostal muscles between the ribs, whence it was easily removed. A considerable discharge of reddish-colored serum followed, with great mitigation of the symptoms, after which, under strict treatment, the man recovered, and was sent to Elvas with every prospect of a cure.
Lieutenant-Colonel Harcourt and Major Gillies, of the 40th Regiment, were both shot through the chest, at the head of the regiment, at the successful assault of Badajos; the wounds were as nearly similar as possible, from before directly backward. They were taken to the same tent, and treated alike with the same care by the late Mr. Boutflower, the surgeon of the regiment, with whom I saw them daily. The inflammatory symptoms ran high in both. In Major Gillies, a tough old Scotchman, they could not be subdued, and he died, at the end of a few days, of pleuro-pneumonia. Colonel Harcourt slowly recovered, and died Marquis d’Harcourt, near Windsor, more than twenty-five years afterward, suffering little or no inconvenience from his chest, when I last saw him.
Captain Cane, 23d Fusiliers, was wounded at the affair of Saca Parte, in front of Alfaiates, in 1812, by a musket-ball, which struck him below and a little to the outside of the left nipple, fractured the rib, and entered the chest, giving rise to the sensation as if the ball had passed diagonally downward and backward to the loins of the same side. He spat blood, and was very faint. The next day he could scarcely breathe, was in great pain, continued flushed and anxious; pulse 100. He was bled into a washhand-basin until he fainted, and every day afterward, some days twice, to a less extent, for ten days, and once again until syncope was induced, on an accession of symptoms after an imprudence in taking a little wine, which nearly smothered him, he said. Some pieces of flannel shirt, of braces, coat, etc. were removed from the wound, and several portions of bone gradually followed, together with a quantity of matter, which continued to flow from May until the end of the following September, when the wound healed.
On the 23d Jan., 1821, I had an opportunity of examining this gentleman. My report says, he is never free from a little pain in the loins, where the ball is supposed to be, and cannot take a full inspiration without pain in the chest; expectorates more or less constantly, and occasionally a little blood about once in three or four months in half congealed lumps. Cannot ride or take any exercise because it brings on the pain. The cicatrix shows a large, deep hole, and the deficiency of the rib is well marked. The side of the chest is altogether contracted and flatter; the heart has been moved behind the sternum; the beat of the apex being on the other side of the xiphoid cartilage, and that of the heart, as a whole, is more indistinct than usual. In other ways in good health. It is possible that the ball may be lodged in or be retained by layers of coagulable lymph in the angle formed between the diaphragm, the ribs, and the spine.
William Downes, of the 11th Regiment of infantry, aged thirty-three, was wounded by a musket-ball, on the 31st of August, 1813, in the Pyrenees; it fractured the fourth rib of the left side, passed through the chest, and came out behind through the scapula. He spat a good deal of blood, although little flowed from the wound. The next day he was bled largely twice, to relieve the bleeding from the lung, and was sent to Passages, where he was bled daily; and thence, a ship being ready, to Santander, where he arrived on the 14th of September. A free, bloody, purulent discharge took place from the anterior wound, but little from the posterior, and he expectorated a bloody, purulent matter, and occasionally a little blood. Toward the end of September the sanguineous expectoration ceased; but the soft parts of the chest had sloughed and separated under an attack of hospital gangrene, from which he had a narrow escape during the month of October. The wound in the chest gradually closed during the month of November; and on the 14th of December he was discharged convalescent, his health tolerably good, but his breathing by no means free; no expectoration. The left arm was impaired in power, in consequence of the mischief done to the muscles of the fore part of the chest and shoulder by the hospital gangrene. The chest was altogether somewhat flattened and shrunk, but there did not seem to be any diseased action going on within.
Case of Lieutenant-Colonel Dumaresq, aid-de-camp to Lord Strafford, by himself.—While turning round, after a successful charge of infantry, at Hougomont, on the 18th of June, 1815, I was wounded by a musket-ball, which passed through the right scapula, penetrated the chest, and lodged in the middle of the rib in the axilla, which was supposed to be broken. When desired to cough by the medical officer who first saw me, almost immediately after receiving the wound, some blood was intermixed with the saliva. I became extremely faint, and remained so about an hour and a half, after which I rode four or five miles to the village of Waterloo, where I was bled, which relieved me from the great difficulty I had in breathing; this difficulty was accompanied by a severe pain down my neck, chest, and right side. I was much easier until the evening of the 19th; but in the course of the night, the difficulty of breathing becoming much greater, and the spasmodic affection having very much increased, I was bled seven times, until the middle of the next day.—20th. I continued better, but was then seized with the most violent spasms imaginable in my neck, chest, and stomach. I could scarcely breathe at all, and was in the greatest possible pain; I was again bled twice very largely, and my stomach and chest fomented for a length of time with warm water and flannels. I passed a very tolerable night, and continued pretty well until two o’clock the following day, when I was again very largely bled, by which I was very much relieved. I continued pretty well, and free from much pain; but my pulse having very much increased, and having a good deal of fever, on the 23d I was bled again; after this I continued free from much pain or difficulty of respiration, and on the 26th was removed into Bruxelles, when I came under your care. I forgot to mention that when I was so violently attacked I had two lavements most vigorously applied; salts, etc. proving of no avail, took digitalis, commencing with ten drops every four hours, increasing to fifteen from the second day.
N.B.—Up to this period, the 2d of July, the devil a bit have I eaten.
While with fat mutton-chops, and nice loins of veal,
You stuff your d—d guts, your hearts are all steel.