ing power of so-called expanding bullets of small
calibre. I believe that a great number of the injuries which were
attributed to the employment of these missiles were produced either by
ricochet regulation bullets of small calibre, or by large leaden bullets
of the Martini-Henry type.

_Symptoms._--I very much doubt whether the general symptoms observed as
the result of wounds from bullets of small calibre differ in more than
slight degree from those described when larger bullets were regularly
employed. Great variation was met with, but I do not think a diminution
in serious results in this direction corresponding to the comparatively
limited nature of the direct injury to the organs or tissues can be
affirmed. It is true that the immediate symptoms in many patients were
amazingly slight, but after all, this has always been a feature of
gunshot injuries on the field of battle and cannot be assigned a
position of distinctive importance.

1. _Psychical disturbance and shock._--Some remarkable instances of
psychical disturbance were observed, and although perhaps in no way
influenced by the calibre of the projectile, they seem worthy of note in
this place. Thus a patient wounded over the cervical spine and who
suffered later with a slight degree of spinal concussion emitted an
involuntary shriek like that of a wounded hare on being struck; another
(Martini wound), after receiving a wound of the chest, lost all sense of
his surroundings for a considerable period, and occupied himself in
attempts to write on a white stone lying near him on the veldt; then
suddenly realising his position he was greatly bewildered in trying to
account for his own action. A similar instance of preoccupation is
probably offered by the dead man in the accompanying photograph (fig.
45), whose arms, forearms, and hands had evidently been in play until
the actual moment of death. Again the influence of the psychical state
on the actual occurrence of shock was often illustrated by the mental
condition of the wounded after a battle; thus after the battles of
Belmont and Graspan the patients came into hospital in excellent
spirits, and minimised their injuries in the wish of rapidly regaining
the front; while after the battle of Magersfontein the men were
depressed and miserable, shock was more pronounced, and their sufferings
were undoubtedly greater.

On the whole, however, shock was by no means a prominent symptom in the
small-bore injuries of