CHAPTER XII
ON SHELL WOUNDS
The title of this work hardly allows of its conclusion without a brief mention of the shell wounds observed during the campaign.
As already pointed out, these formed but a very small proportion of the injuries treated in the hospitals, and beyond this they possessed comparatively small surgical interest, since, as a rule, the features presented were those of mere lacerated wounds, while the more severe of the cases which survived only offered scope for operations of the mutilating class so uncongenial to modern surgical instincts.
The fatal wounds consisted in extensive lacerations resulting in the destruction of the head or limbs, the laying open of the abdominal or thoracic cavities, or the production of visceral injuries beyond the possibility of repair. Of such injuries no further mention will be made.
A very great variety of shells was employed during the campaign, especially on the part of the Boers, and the frontispiece gives some idea of these. The photograph was taken by Mr. Kisch after the relief of Ladysmith. For the want of more extended knowledge I shall confine myself to the description of a few injuries caused by two classes of large shell, those of the Vickers-Maxim or 'Pom-pom,' and two varieties of shrapnel.
The large shells employed may be divided into classes according to the metal used in their construction, and the nature of the explosive with which they were filled. These details are of some surgical import, because they affect the nature of the fragments into which the shells are broken up.
Fragments of shells constructed with cast iron and burst with powder, and also of forged steel exploded with lyddite, are depicted in fig. 90.