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Wind of a Ball. [Aug. 1,condition of a race which has been s® foolishly despised, and so wickedly maltreated. _ Africanus.Lombard-street; July 1817.To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.SIR,THE cause of the singular phenomenon, for which your correspondent requests an explanation in your number for June, respecting the death of Captain Downie, has elicited the opinions of some intelligent philosophers, although it has never met with that attention which might and ought, froip. the importance of the subject, to have been afforded it.Sir Gilbert Blane, in his Observations on the Diseases of Seamen, lias entered partially into the consideration of it, and related many historical cases, similar to that of the heroic commander whos® fate has given rise to the present essay. He observes, “ there were two instances in the last battle, (in the West Indies, in April 1782), of a ball passing close to the stomach, and producing instant death. The one was a lieutenant of the Royal Oak, the other a common sailor of the Bedford. A man, in another ship, in consequence of a ball passing close to his belly, remained without sense or motion for some lime, and a large livid tumor arose on the part, but he recovered. He mentions, also, the case of a man whom he attended at the hospital at Barbadoes, who had the buttons of his trowsers carried eff by a cannon-ball, without any breach in the skin: in this instance the bladder was much affected for nearly three months, but the event was fortunate;—and also that of a “young officer in the army, who had his epaulette carried off by a cannon-ball at Charlestown, in consequence of which the shoulder and adjacent parts of the neck were affected for some time. Sir Gilbert remarks, however, that he never knew death the consequence of a w ind of a ball on the head, although he narrates an instance of an offieer at the battle of Grenada, who was struck insensible, and remained so for some time, by a shot passing close to his temple *, but Mr. Ellis* mentions the case of a Sepoy who died in forty-eight hours, in consequence of a ball passing near bis head. Many other cases are also related by both the preceding gentlemen, and where the bone** Edinburgh Medical Journal; vol. viik page 3.wer®
Newspaper Details
Monthly Magazine
London, Middlesex, GB
Fri, Aug 01, 1817
Page 18
Full Page
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Anonymous
USA 09 Dec 2023
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