Gunshot injuries : their history, characteristic features, complications, and general treatment ; with statistics concerning them as they are met with in warfare / by T. Longmore.

Longmore, T. (Thomas), Sir, 1816-1895.

Date:: 1877

Credit: Gunshot injuries : their history, characteristic features, complications, and general treatment ; with statistics concerning them as they are met with in warfare / by T. Longmore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$velocity of those musket balls \vas,uncler the ordinary circumstances of warfare, when compared with that of the conoidal rifle bullets in present use under similar conditions. In a table showing the velocities of certain moving- bodies, published a few years before the Crimean War, the common musket ball was set down as moving at an average rate of 850 miles per hour; the 2-grooved rifle ball, which was the arm at that time of the Rifle Brigade, at 1,000 miles; the 24-lb. cannon ball at 1,600 miles per hour. Statements such as these were of little practical value, for of course the true rate of motion of any particular projectile must be constantly varying during the whole range of its flight. The velocity diminishes from the moment the projectile quits the gun to the moment its course is finished. But, using the statement merely for purposes of comparison, it may be recalled to mind that at the time it was made the musket bullet could not be depended on to hit an object beyond 80 yards, the rifle bullet from 200 to 250 yards, while modern rifles are sighted to 1,000 yards and upwards. Initial velocity.—The velocity at first starting, the initial velocity, of a bullet discharged from a smooth-bore weapon, such as the old musket, if the ball be well fitted (which practically sel- dom, if ever, happened in warfare), is really greater than the initial velocity of a bullet of like weight from a grooved rifle, pro- pelled by a like charge of gunpowder. There is not the expendi- ture of power in the smooth-bore which there is in the rifle, m forcing the bullet to assume the form and follow the direction of the grooves. But when once the two kinds of projectile are free from their respective weapons, so great a resistance is offered by the atmosphere to the passage through it of the relatively large- fronted spherical projectile compared with what is offered to the prolonged cylindro-conoidal bullet, with its diminished frontage but equal mass, that the power of the round ball is altogether lost at a distance at which the conoidal bullet is in nearly as full force as when it quitted the muzzle of the rifle. The rifle bullet can never gain any increase of power over that which was first im- pressed upon it, but it maintains that power much longer than the round bullet, because the air has less retarding effect upon it. It is, therefore, evident tliat, in general, as regards wounds inflicted in warfare, the initial velocity is not of so much moment to sur- geons as is the velocity which is preserved by the bullet at different distances in the course of its flight. In particular cases, however, in which the wounds liave been inflicted by bullets discharged from fire-arms within a limited number of yards, it is necessary to take into account the initial velocity of projectiles in order to explain the effects which are sometimes witnessed from their action. During the last war in New Zealand, a large proportion of the wounds inflicted on the Britisii$