eraesthesia
developed, but on the twenty-eighth day the patient developed
secondary peritonitis from other causes and died on the
thirty-first. A fracture of the transverse process existed, but
unfortunately the spinal canal was not opened for examination
and no details can be given as to the condition of the cord.
(See case 201, p. 463.)

Fractures of the _spinous processes_, or those involving both the
process and laminae, were not uncommon. Isolated separation of the
spinous process was usually the result of wounds crossing the back
obliquely or transversely. Examples of this injury were numerous,
especially in the dorsal region, as being the most prominent,
particularly when the patients assumed the prone position when advancing
on the enemy.

Cervical injuries, owing to the comparatively sheltered position of the
more deeply sunk spines, and from the fact that the head was usually
under cover of a stone or ant-heap, were less common; in one instance
hyperaesthesia was noted in one upper extremity as the result of a
crossing bullet having struck the fourth cervical spine. In a man
wounded at Paardeberg Drift the bullet entered at the centre of the
buttock, traversed the bones of the pelvis, and, leaving that cavity
above the crest of the ilium, crossed the spine to emerge in the
opposite loin. Suppuration occurred, and when the wound was laid open
the third and fourth lumbar spinous processes were found to be loosened,
but still connected to the surrounding soft parts. There were no nerve
symptoms in this case; these would not have been expected, since by the
time that the bullet had traversed the bones of the pelvis its velocity
must have been considerably lessened, even if high at the moment of
primary impact. In another case a dorsal spine, together with its
lamina, was separated and moveable; the only nerve symptoms were slight
pain and a crop of herpes on the line of distribution of the
corresponding intercostal nerve, the bullet having probably struck the
nerve in passing across the intercostal space. In one instance of a
retained bullet lying beneath the skin of the back, its passage between
two contiguous dorsal spines without fracture of either was determined
during an extraction operation.

When the prone position was assumed by the men, more or less
longitudinal wounds in the course of the spine were naturally liable to
occur. These tracks assumed somewhat greater importa