ly, but a considerable amount of slimy,
bile-stained discharge was still escaping from the ragged
entrance wound on the man's arrival at the Base on the
fourteenth day. The abdomen was then normal in appearance, and
as to physical signs, except for a tympanitic note over the
hepatic area to the right of the wound. The temperature was
normal, the pulse 90, the tongue clean, and the bowels were
acting. At the end of four weeks pleurisy, with effusion,
developed on the right side; the chest was aspirated and
[Symbol: ounce]xx of clear serum drawn off. The man then
rapidly improved; the bile-stained discharge ceased at the end
of five weeks, and a small granulating wound eventually closed
at the end of two months, when the man returned to England.

Fig. 91 is inserted to illustrate the multifarious nature of the
fragments into which the component parts of shells may break up. The
pieces are for the most part of brass, and formed parts of either time
or percussion fuses.

Fig. 92 represents the one-pound Vickers-Maxim shell in its actual size.
The wounds produced by this shell are of some interest, since the
Vickers-Maxim may be said to have been on trial during this campaign.
The general opinion seems to have been to the effect that the moral
influence produced by the continuous rapid firing of the gun and the
attendant unpleasant noise were its chief virtues. A considerable number
of wounds must, however, have been produced by it, which, if not of
great magnitude and severity, were, at any rate, calculated to put the
recipients out of action, and these wounds, moreover, were slower in
healing than many of the rifle-bullet injuries.

The shell is so small that it was said to occasionally strike the body
as a whole, and perforate. I was shown a case in which a wounded officer
was confident that an entire shell had perforated his arm. The entry
wound was at the outer part of the front of the forearm, the exit at the
inner aspect of the arm, just above the elbow. Two ragged contused
wounds existed, which healed slowly, but no serious nervous or vascular
injury had been produced. Although it is probable that only a fragment
perforated in this case, it is of interest in connection with the
following.

In a case shown to me by Sir William Thomson in the Irish Hospital at
Bloemfontein, an entire shell had passed between the left arm and body
of a trooper, perforating