Increased length of the barrel, up to the point where friction counterbalances the advantage, permits of fuller use of the expansive power of the gases of explosion, about 26 inches being the most advantageous length for shotguns and rifles using black powder, although 14 feet would be required for burning all the grains, while a less distance suffices for the nitro-powders. Thus a given cartridge develops vastly more force if fired from a rifle than from a revolver, although all factors but length of barrel remain identical.

Close confinement of the gases behind the ball naturally increases the efficiency of the weapon, so that closely fitting and well-made arms do much better execution than cheaper ones, their efficiency being still further increased by the use of proper wadding and patches, and by the hollowed, expansile base of the bullet, by which the "windage" is

counteracted.

Velocity and penetration are influenced very largely by the shape and weight of the ball. Although a lighter bullet may travel faster, it strikes with less force than a heavy one in many cases, for the force of impact is the resultant of the velocity multiplied by the weight. Moreover, a heavy ball, especially if long and pointed, may pass a lighter one, particularly if the latter is spheric, which has started with greater speed, because of the fact that the resistance of the air is less effective in checking its course. It will have a greater penetration at a given range, because of its greater weight, unless the speed of the lighter ball more than compensates for this advantage, the penetration being, ceteris paribus, approximately as the square of the velocity.

With a poorly made and foul weapon the ball may fail in penetration, in part because of its turning and striking sidewise. I have seen this occur at six inches from the muzzle. In firing seven shots from a cheap .22-caliber revolver, the barrel fairly clean, at distances varying from eight to twenty-four inches, I found that but one struck fairly point on, while one had actually struck base first. The uninitiated, and especially ignorant criminals, commonly choose a weapon of large caliber,-as, e. g., the .44 "bulldog,”—a cheap arm, of poor material and workmanship, with short barrel and loose joints. I have known a heavy winter overcoat to stop three out of six bullets from such a weapon, at distances of five to ten feet, in an attempted homicide. It is especially in the use of such arms that the ball strikes sidewise, and because of this fact and its low velocity takes a very erratic course. I have even known the bullet to stick in the foul barrel, in two instances three and five balls respectively becoming impacted before it was discovered by the shooter why no mark was made by the bullet, the gases having escaped through the loose joints of the weapon, so that it did not burst.

Deflection of Bullets.-The bullet in flight may be deflected by striking an intervening object or by the deformity produced by such striking, or, as I have seen happen occasionally, from the splitting of the ball in flight, from defect in its structure-an occasional cause of

multiple wounds. Dirt in the barrel, and especially in the muzzle, utterly destroys all accuracy, particularly with rifled arms, the long bullet often striking sidewise even at a few yards' distance. Presenting thus a great surface, its force is diminished, and the ball is easily deflected in the body. I have recently seen, with Dr. Leonard Freeman, a case in which the bullet from a .22-caliber rifle held against the forehead perpendicularly failed to penetrate directly, but was deflected to the left, passing through the left orbit, this deflection being doubtless due to the obstruction which the forehead offered to the egress of the air in front of the ball. When the muzzle touches the body, the ball often fails to penetrate. Taylor certainly erred in stating that "the deflection does not appear to be much connected with its velocity," for low velocity is the prime factor. The round ball is more easily deflected than the long one, especially if the "windage" has been great, so that it has "wabbled" in the barrel.

While, from the causes mentioned, and the further fact that the ball revolves in flight, the pistol ball is so easily turned aside by bones, tendons, ligaments, muscular tissue, or even skin, many examples of all of which I have seen, the bullet from the modern sporting or military rifle in full flight is not commonly deflected from its path by any tissues in the human body, excepting in those instances where a soft-pointed or explosive bullet or a partially demantled one is used, with the intent that it shall deform upon striking. Still, bullets of soft lead, even with great penetrative power, may split upon striking bone, the fragments often producing slit-like wounds of exit, and such bullets are commonly more or less "set-up," or "mushroomed," so that the point becomes several times as large in diameter as the base. The rifle balls alloyed with tin are harder and are less likely to deform, and hence less likely to be deflected. The deformed bullet may contain fragments of bony tissue, and I have seen an instance in which grains of sand were imbedded in a bullet which had glanced upon a ridge before striking and killing an antelope. I believe that the curious instances, several of which have fallen under my observation, in which a rifle bullet has lodged in the body of a grouse or other small creature, are accounted for by the bullet having struck the ground and become deformed, losing at the same time much of its force, when the feathers or other parts have been carried in before it, preventing the ball from passing through the body of the game.'

Much variation exists in the vast number of loaded cartridges upon the market, the bullets weighing from about 25 grains to nearly 2 ounces, and the powder charge being proportional. The modern bullet, as compared with the soft-lead spheric ball from the smooth-bore, has the advantage of the screw and wedge, as well as of greater weight, in a general way, and of greater velocity, and hence commonly gives a much straighter track. Some cartridges have a wad between powder

1 For many points of interest in this connection the reader is referred to articles by the author in Scribner's, October, 1891, Recreation, February, 1895, and March, 1896, and to many articles in the medical press.

and ball, some have a paper patch about the ball; some have rim-fire shells, some are "pin-fire," but most of all are "center-fire," except in the smallest calibers. Some ammunition is lubricated; some is not; while some shells have black powder, others have nitro-powders. These points are mentioned to call attention to the necessity of investigating closely the exact variety of cartridge used in any given case.

Character of Gunshot Wounds.-A gunshot wound has the essential characteristics of a contused wound, owing to the bruising by the passage of the missile, not, as formerly supposed, because burned by the heat of the bullet, nor poisoned, as a rule. One may easily hold a rifle ball, stopped by a sand-bank, in the hand without discomfort two seconds after it leaves the gun. This proves that it could not have been very warm while in flight. Bergmann has shown that most gunshot wounds in time of war are aseptic at the time of infliction, while LaGarde has proved the absence of pathogenic germs in cartridges taken from original packages. He also proved that the bacillus of anthrax is not destroyed by the heat of the explosion, if applied to the bullet, as infection commonly resulted in animals struck with such a missile.

The statements made by Caspar, Weil, and others, that the wound of exit is smaller than that of entrance, do not hold good with modern weapons. That the opposite is true all authorities now admit. The entrance is likely to be dry and dark colored; the exit, bloody and raw. There is commonly loss of substance in the former, while in the latter the parts may often be so replaced as to show no loss of tissue. The carrying-in of the edges at the point of entrance is commonly well made out, unless fat under tension or pressure from decomposition prevents. The exit is likely to be somewhat averted, showing subcutaneous fat, irregular or even ragged, while, from splitting of the ball multiple exit wounds may be present, often slit-like, similar to the wounds of entrance and exit of bullets deformed by striking some hard object before entering the body.

The wound of exit often shows bony "sand" or fragments, carried through from within, while the entrance wound more commonly shows fragments of clothing or other extraneous matter. In bone, the exit is often much larger than the ball, and the entrance may be as well. With Dr. H. L. Taylor I saw a round entrance hole in the skull of a suicide, made by a .32-caliber ball, .62 inch in diameter.

Shotgun. In the use of this weapon the load may consist of ball, fine or coarse shot, pebbles, nails, slugs, or other missiles. Unless ball is used, in a general way it may be stated that the arm will not be effective beyond about 100 yards, although stray shot at times kills beyond that distance. In caliber these weapons vary from about .424 inch to 1.052 inches, and shoot more or less closely according to the degree of "choke" or its absence. At distances of from one to two feet, according to the style of weapon and character of its load, the charge enters with but a single point of entrance, not commonly so absolutely round as is found in cases where a ball is used, and, as the

distance is increased, becoming more ragged, with separate shot-holes around the border. The penetrative force is much increased by the entrance of the load as one mass. Ordinarily the pellets of shot tend to diverge after entrance, but exceptions occur. A single pellet may strike the body and cause death, great care being needed to avoid overlooking such a wound. Certain cartridges are loaded with the express purpose of spreading soon after leaving the muzzle, and others with the purpose that they shall hold together longer than usual. Rarely the paper shot-shell breaks off from the metallic head and goes with the shot for one or two hundred yards, thus acting to hold the latter together, virtually constituting a bullet.

An examination of many hundred gunshot wounds in animals and birds, as well as the investigation of a very considerable number in practice and upon the postmortem table, inflicted by missiles varying from the smallest pellets of shot to the heaviest sporting-rifle bullets, fired at most various ranges, leads me to state that it is exceedingly rare that a careful examination of all the points involved will leave one in doubt as to which is the wound of entrance or of exit. The points to be mentioned are really of more importance than the one regarding the size of the orifice, to which so much attention has been devoted in the past. The edges of the entrance wound are commonly blackened by the smut adhering to the ball, or by the lead itself, less marked in the use of the nitro-powders. The leadmark is chiefly seen upon bone. Correspondence of holes in the clothing with the wounds, and the carrying of fragments into the orifice, burning of the clothing, or marking by grains of powder, marking of person or clothing by wadding, or by flame or powder-grains, the finding of the ball in the body, the direction of the fibers of periosteum, tendon, muscle, or other tissue about the wound, or the hinging of bits of bone by periosteum about the exit, all assist in making a decision. The gradual increase of destruction as the ball passes inward, so well seen in bone, is of great value. Practically some of these points will always be sufficiently well marked to be conclusive, I believe.

Was the wound inflicted by firearms?-If the investigation be carefully conducted, there should be little room for doubt upon this point. In one case in which the muzzle touched the skin and the ball rebounded without injury to the underlying structures I should have hesitated to make a positive statement excepting for the history. The ball from a poor revolver may rebound from a rib, for instance, and one hesitates to believe that so shallow a wound can have resulted from a bullet unless the history is obtained. Hence the statement that "a ball either traverses or lodges" is incorrect. Slit-like wounds from fragments of a ball or from a deformed one may present the greatest difficulty. Glancing wounds, especially from a charge of shot at close range, appear as if cut with a toothed implement or a barbed wire. The discovery of shot along the course of such a wound was convincing in one of my cases, apart from the history. A rifle ball may cut out a clean trench, or even glance from the skin, as I once noted, in the case

of a very small target gun. The thin abdominal wall may be cut almost as by a knife, while I have seen abdominal hernia as a result of the cutting of the muscles of the wall, although the skin was not severed by the bullet, excepting at the oval wounds of entrance and exit. A long bullet may "keyhole," or strike sidewise, causing a wound similar to the oval wound just mentioned. I knew of a case in which such a wound was alleged by two physicians to have been made with a knife, although such a mistake should not have occurred if all points in the case had been carefully studied. The spheric ball is commonly thought to cause a larger orifice than the long one of similar caliber. An explosive ball may cause a large ragged opening without the signs commonly found in gunshot wounds, especially if a bone lie immediately underneath the part struck, and a similar explosive effect is seen in certain wounds from the new military cartridge, within the "explosive zone." Fragments of lead are commonly found in the tissues in the former case, but not in the latter, unless a "demantled " bullet has been used, as the lead core is incased in some firmer metal. These ragged fragments of lead do not easily encyst, as a round ball does, but cause constant irritation in many cases.

It has long been recognized that it is not necessary that a weapon shall be loaded with ball or shot to do serious harm at short range. Powder alone may produce frightful laceration, while the wadding may be very effective as a missile, as the great number of reported cases proves. A few years ago an epidemic of severe wounds, with many deaths, occurred from the use of a certain toy-pistol using a blank cartridge, over which, in many cases, a pebble was placed as a missile. The wounds, of which I saw many, were generally in the palm of the left hand, I saw five such in one day,-from the manner in which the pistol was held in loading, the discharge taking place accidentally meanwhile. The irritation of some substance in the brown card-board apparently used as wadding was thought to be the cause of the numerous deaths from tetanus from these insignificant looking wounds. Five deaths occurred in the hospital in which I then served, in a few weeks, from this cause, although of the five previously mentioned, all recovered. It seems probable, in the light of modern bacteriology, that the wadding mentioned contained bacilli of tetanus, for the fatality did not seem to be influenced by the presence or absence of a missile.

Up to a distance of five yards or more the wadding from a shotgun may leave a distinct mark, as I have proved experimentally, and the wad may be seen in the air for a much greater distance. In the use of fixed ammunition in rifles in which a wad is used there is little likelihood of finding markings, for it is very small and light.

The powder itself, if in coarse grain, especially, may be blown out so as to act either as a charge of shot or as separate pellets, according to the distance, in the first case easily causing fatal injury, in the last great disfigurement. Regardless of the manner of loading, a pistol held directly against the body may not cause penetration, as the com