ich
destruction of one testicle was followed by an attack of melancholia,
culminating in the suicide of the patient.

Wounds of the _penis_ also occurred, but as a rule were unimportant. I
append a case, however; in which the penile urethra was wounded, which
is of some interest.

(209) Wounded at Heilbron. Range 1,500 yards. _Entry_, 2-1/2
inches below the right anterior superior iliac spine; the
bullet traversed the groin superficially in the line of
Poupart's ligament, emerged, and crossed both penis and
scrotum. The trooper was in the saddle when struck, and the
penis probably somewhat coiled up. Three wounds were found, one
at the junction of the penis and scrotum which opened the
urethra, a second one about 3/4 of an inch along the under
surface of the penis, and a third on the left side of the base
of the prepuce. A considerable amount of oedema and
ecchymosis of the scrotum developed, but no extravasation of
urine. A catheter was kept in the urethra for some days, and
the opening eventually closed by granulation.

I only once saw a patient with an injury to the deep urethra; in this
case concurrent injury to other pelvic organs led to death on the third
day. As a good many of the patients with pelvic wounds died rapidly, the
accident may have been more common than my experience would suggest.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _British Med. Journal_, May 12, 1900, i. 1195.

[20] 'On Traumatic Rupture of the Colon.' _Annals of Surgery_, vol. xxx.
1899, p. 137.

[21] Two of these died.

[22] The cases of injury to the solid viscera are those only which
happen to be quoted in the text, and give no idea of relative mortality.

[23] _British Medical Journal_, May 12, 1900, vol. i. p. 1194.

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