hen entirely freed
from its mantle. Pieces of the mantle again may give useful information
both from examination of their thickness and composition. Lastly a naked
core nearly always retains the marking on its base corresponding to the
turning over of the mantle, this not being likely to suffer impact
calculated to efface the groove. When this groove existed the employment
of any of the soft-nosed bullets used in this campaign might be safely
excluded (fig. 46).

_Prognosis._--The question of general mortality amongst the wounded has
already been considered (Chapter I. p. 11), and it has been shown,
putting aside those dying at once on the field, or during the first
twenty-four hours, that the mortality was a low one. Some other points
specially dependent on the nature of the injury are, however, worthy of
mention in this place. First, it has been shown, with a slight
reservation as to when a wound can be considered definitely sound, that
if suppuration did not occur, healing was rapid, and that many men with
slight wounds were back with their regiments in the course of a very few
days. Again, that suppuration when it did occur tended to be local in
character; none the less, if it was at all extensive, it often proved
very prolonged and difficult of treatment, while residual abscesses
after apparent healing were not uncommon. In connection with this
subject I may quote from Colonel Stevenson[12] an observation that limbs
the subject of marked local shock are especially liable to furnish
septic discharges. Parts the subject of local shock when infected show a
lesser degree of vitality and power of resistance to the spread of
infection than do normal ones, and if infected do badly. I think I
convinced myself of this on many occasions, and also of the fact that
cases of fracture in which this condition was marked were slow in
consolidating. Again I am inclined to think that the bad results which
sometimes followed the tying of the limb arteries were also consequent
on lowered vitality, and possibly vaso-motor disturbance due to the
effects of the exquisite vibratory force to which the nerves had been
subjected. On this account I was never anxious to hurry operations in
such cases, unless obviously necessary at the moment.

The larger question of general nervous breakdown as the result of
injuries from bullets of small calibre is at present hardly capable of
an answer, and is so complicated by the co-existence of concurren