Articles: wounds-history.
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Biography Historical Article
The death of an admiral--surgery and medicine in Nelson's Navy.
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Historical Article
Suturing of penetrating wounds to the heart in the nineteenth century: the beginnings of heart surgery.
The beginnings of cardiac surgery go back to the 19th century. This article describes the history of the first attempts to operate on the heart. In 1882, Dr Block from Danzig, and in 1895, Simplicio Del Vecchio, published reports of animal experiments showing that the suturing of heart wounds is possible. ⋯ Shortly afterward, Antonio Parrozzani successfully sutured a stab wound of the left ventricle. Following cardiac surgery back to its very beginnings, it is striking that the first attempts in the 19th century to repair the injured heart were regarded with great skepticism, and that heart suturing only slowly became an established method of treatment. Once the concept of cardiac surgery had become accepted, however, many kinds of operations were developed, paving the way for an explosion in the number of cardiac operations, as we well know, in the century that followed.
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Comparative Study Historical Article
Wound ballistics: Minié ball vs. full metal jacketed bullets--a comparison of Civil War and Spanish-American War firearms.
The advent of the full metal jacketed bullet in the late nineteenth century was thought to cause less severe battlefield wounds. This study compares the wounding characteristics of a reproduction rifle from the American Civil War to one of the Spanish-American War using the wound profile method. ⋯ The rifled musket produced more severe wounds when compared to the Krag-Jorgenson rifle, as was clinically apparent to observers at the time of the Spanish-American War.
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Biography Historical Article
Albert Sidney Johnston's sciatic dueling injury did not contribute to his death at the Battle of Shiloh.
To determine whether General Albert Sidney Johnston's dueling wound and nerve injury (1837) contributed to his death at the Battle of Shiloh (1862). General A.S. Johnston was commander of the Confederate Army at Shiloh and was killed by a bullet that severed his right popliteal artery. The location of this wound in the popliteal fossa region was largely unnoticed and, consequently, was not treated expeditiously. It has been widely assumed that the sciatic nerve was injured in a duel 3 decades before and that this injury resulted in a loss of sensation in the right posterior thigh and knee. This loss of sensation was assumed to be the reason why Johnston failed to notice that he was bleeding and consequently died. ⋯ Johnston's dueling injury was likely not sufficient to cause total sensory loss in the popliteal fossa. His dueling wound, although leaving him mildly impaired, was not sufficient to be responsible for his failure to recognize his wound on the Shiloh battlefield.