nce than the
transverse ones, because the injury to bone was more often multiple, and
the laminae were frequently implicated. The relative importance of such
injuries was dependent on the velocity of the bullet and the depth at
which it travelled. As an instance of a more serious character the
following may be given:--

(95) In a Highlander wounded at Magersfontein, probably at a
range within 1,000 yards, the bullet entered at the right side
of the sixth cervical vertebra; tracking downwards, it loosened
the laminae of the fifth and sixth dorsal vertebrae from the
pedicles, and separated the tip of the seventh spine. The
bullet was extracted from beneath the skin at the latter spot,
its force having been no doubt exhausted by the resistance of
the firm neural arches supported by the weight of the man's
body. Symptoms of total transverse lesion of the cord followed,
and the patient died at the end of fifty-four days. The bone
had not apparently been sufficiently depressed to exert
continuous pressure, but the cord was diffluent and actually
destroyed over an area corresponding with the fourth, fifth,
sixth, and seventh dorsal segments.

I saw no instance of wound of the _neural arch_ from a direct shot in
the back in any of our men, neither was I ever able to detect an injury
to the articular processes as a localised lesion.

Injuries to the _centra_ were very frequent, but differed
extraordinarily in their importance. Perforation by bullets travelling
at a relatively low grade of velocity, but still one sufficient to allow
them to pass through the body, produced in many instances no symptoms
whatever when the track did not lie in immediate contiguity to the
spinal canal or perforate it.

In all the wounds which I had the opportunity of examining post mortem,
the fracture was of the nature of a pure perforation of the cancellous
tissue of the centrum, with no comminution beyond slight splintering of
the compact tissue at the aperture of exit. In one instance the bullet
passed in a coronal direction so close to the back of the centrum as to
leave a septum of only the thickness of stout paper between the track
and the spinal canal. In this case signs of total transverse lesion were
present. I never happened to meet with a case in which the canal was
encroached upon from the front by displaced bone. In some cases at the
end of six weeks there was dif