Articles: wounds-history.
-
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.
-
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."