onrad
Gesner records an ingenious device of an old surgeon who succeeded in
extracting an arrow which had resisted all previous attempts, by
placing the subject in the very position in which he was at the time of
reception of the wound. The following noteworthy case shows that the
bladder may be penetrated by an arrow or bullet entering the buttocks
of a person on horseback. Forwood describes the removal of a vesical
calculus, the nucleus of which was an iron arrow-head, as follows:
"Sitimore, a wild Indian, Chief of the Kiowas, aged forty-two, applied
to me at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, August, 1869, with symptoms of
stone in the bladder. The following history was elicited: In the fall
of 1862 he led a band of Kiowas against the Pawnee Indians, and was
wounded in a fight near Fort Larned, Kansas. Being mounted and leaning
over his horse, a Pawnee, on foot and within a few paces, drove an
arrow deep into his right buttock. The stick was withdrawn by his
companions, but the iron point remained in his body. He passed bloody
urine immediately after the injury, but the wound soon healed, and in a
few weeks he was able to hunt the buffalo without inconvenience. For
more than six years he continued at the head of his band, and traveled
on horseback, from camp to camp, over hundreds of miles every summer. A
long time after the injury he began to feel distress in micturating,
which steadily increased until he was forced to reveal this sacred
secret (as it is regarded by these Indians), and to apply for medical
aid. His urine had often stopped for hours, at which times he had
learned to obtain relief by elevating his hips, or lying in different
positions. The urine was loaded with blood and mucus and with a few pus
globules, and the introduction of a sound indicated a large, hard
calculus in the bladder. The Indians advised me approximately of the
depth to which the shaft had penetrated and the direction it took, and
judging from the situation of the cicatrix and all the circumstances it
was apparent that the arrow-head had passed through the glutei muscles
and the obturator foremen and entered the cavity of the bladder, where
it remained and formed the nucleus of a stone. Stone in the bladder is
extremely rare among the wild Indians, owing, no doubt, to their almost
exclusive meat diet and the very healthy condition of their digestive
organs, and this fact, in connection with the age of the patient and
the unobstructed condi