Captain Slayter Smith, of the 13th Dragoons, being engaged at Campo Mayor, on the 25th of March, 1811, was shot by a pistol-ball, which entered at the left hip, three inches and a half from the junction of the ilium with the sacrum, an inch and a half below its crest, and came out about three inches below the navel, and one inch to its right side. He felt a terrible shock, but did not faint or fall from his horse.
“There was a protrusion of bowel from the wound in front of about three inches; but little blood issued from it. The hemorrhage from the wound in my back was very copious. A French officer, with three or four of his men, were so near me that he called out ‘Rendez vous, mon officier,’ to which I replied, ‘Pas encore, monsieur,’ and rode away with my bowel in my hand.
“I reached the field hospital shortly afterward, when the protrusion was returned without enlarging the orifice, and no stitch was put into the wound then or afterward. It was dressed merely with lint and adhesive plaster. I begged earnestly for a glass of Madeira, which, after a little hesitation on the part of the surgeon, was given to me; but they afterward thought it necessary to bleed me; but little blood followed the insertion of the lancet. This was the only time I was bled. In the morning I found the bed saturated with blood, which had trickled through to the floor, and had escaped from the wound behind.
“Before a month had elapsed I and all the wounded were removed to Elvas on bullock-cars, and a desperate journey it was.
“On my arrival, inflammation began in the wound in front, accompanied with great swelling and pain. The swelling was laid open and a quantity of matter was evacuated, followed by an angry-looking protrusion, which was carefully washed with warm water, and poulticed; when the inflammation had subsided, the wound was dressed as before, with lint confined by adhesive plaster. When the protrusion was touched by the hand I experienced a nauseous and disgusting sensation, to which in comparison the application of the knife or lancet was a flea-bite.
“I arrived in England in June, and in September went to Brighton. Soon afterward I felt terrible pains in the right side of my back, in a line with the wound, through the ilium, or rather above it, where a kind of tumor formed. For several days I suffered agony from it; and one night, completely worn out, I fell into a long and deep sleep, and awaking late in the morning I found all pain and excrescence gone, and nothing remaining but a tenderness of the part on pressure with the finger. I underwent much from violent spasms in the stomach, which I never had before I was wounded. I recovered, however, sufficiently to rejoin my regiment the following spring in the Peninsula, and was soon afterward again wounded in a skirmish by a spent shot in the left shoulder, which, however, was of no moment, though I was compelled to return to England on sick leave, in October, 1812, as the spasms increased with greater severity, incapacitating me from doing my duty, and at times rendering me totally helpless.
“I now gradually recovered my health, and in the spring of 1815, accompanied the 10th Hussars to Belgium, and served at Waterloo.
“My health gave way again in 1821, and I certainly was in a precarious state for three or four years, but I gradually recovered, and by dint of great care and attention to diet I am now (1853) in robust health, and can take the strongest exercise with impunity.”
John Richardson, of the 1st Royal Dragoons, was wounded at the battle of Waterloo by a musket-ball, which entered two and a half inches above the umbilicus, and passed out on the left side, close to the lumbar vertebræ. He threw up a considerable quantity of blood, and the stomach was so irritable that nothing would remain on it. He complained of pain, which cut him right across, as he termed it; his eyes were suffused and face flushed; had headache; pulse 130. Thirty ounces of blood were taken from the arm, emollient injections thrown up the rectum, and poultices applied to the wounds.
June 20th.—Some blood came away with the injections during the night; great pain in the right side and shoulder; saline draughts are returned tinged with bile and blood; pulse 130. Bled to sixteen ounces; injections and poultices continued.