Articles: wounds-history.
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Review Historical Article
Tudor military surgery and the management of Sir Martin Frobisher's gunshot wound: Comparison with current treatment.
Sir Martin Frobisher (ca 1535-1594), the famous Elizabethan explorer and privateer, sustained a bullet to the outer plate of his ilium from a low-velocity bullet wound fired at close range from an arquebus, an early form of musket. The bullet was removed, but he subsequently died from gas gangrene. This paper looks at the management of this injury in Tudor times and compares it to current practice. ⋯ Guidelines on managing gunshot wounds, and most research, is focussed on high-velocity injuries where removal of foreign material (clothing) is mentioned. Low-velocity injuries are treated as "outpatients" and the importance of removing foreign material, especially when the bullet is left in situ, is not mentioned. The inexperienced surgeon of today risks making the same error as Frobisher's surgeon.
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Letter Historical Article
Cautery in medieval surgery: a unique palaeopathological case.
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Case Reports Historical Article
A Political Case of Penetrating Cranial Trauma: The Injury of James Scott Brady.
James Brady, the White House press secretary during President Ronald Reagan's first term in office, was 1 of 4 people (including the President) wounded during an attempted assassination attempt on President Reagan's life on March 30, 1981. John Hinckley, Jr. was found not guilty of this attempt by reason of insanity. The assassination attempt was a ploy by Hinckley, Jr. to impress the actress Jodie Foster. ⋯ Although permanently left with residual weakness on the left side of his body, making a wheelchair necessary, Brady maintained cognitive and personality traits that were very close to his preinjury baseline. As a result, James Brady and his wife, Sarah, led a call to create legislative reform subsequently known as the "Brady Bill." This bill controversially made mandatory background checks for the purchase of firearms from licensed dealers. Our work aims to describe the assassination attempt, the neurosurgical injury and management of Mr. Brady's case, and the brief historical sequel that followed.
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J Trauma Acute Care Surg · Nov 2015
Biography Historical ArticleA medical history of Governor John B. Connally and his gunshot wounds.
: On November 22, 1963, the Governor of Texas, John Connally, was injured during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. ⋯ However, the injuries sustained by Governor Connally have been overlooked by historians predominantly because of the extraordinary importance of the presidential assassination and its impact on the national consciousness. This review discusses the governor's political life, the mechanism of injury, his medical care, and the role the injuries had on his subsequent public life.
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Review Historical Article
Historical vignette of infamous gunshot injury to spine: 'an ailment not to be treated'?
The increasing prevalence and gloomy socioeconomic consequence of spine injury remain a concern in modern medicine. In this article, we highlight the infamous gunshot spinal injuries of a few eminent personalities across multiple centuries and their sociopolitical impact in context with the evolution of modern medicine. The role of available medicine in these victims was not more than a mere watcher, thus substantiating an infamous quote from ancient literature that describes spine injury as "an ailment not to be treated."