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Young Writers Society


Gunshot Wound (1800s)



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Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:56 am
FaithWorks says...



I am doing a story and a character in it gets shot, how would the wound be dressed? And not by a doctor. The year my story takes place in is 1867, the injured character is a young man, the gunshot is just below his rib cage on the left side. Is this possible to survive?

Thank you for your help!

Blessings,
Faith
“It’s beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.”

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Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:46 pm
pegasi_quill says...



Survival would depend on how deep the wound is, I guess.

As for dressing it - I can't be certain, but I assume that after retrieving the bullet (considering it would be lodged inside the wound), it would be cleaned, have some sort of poultice put on it, and then bandaged.

Like I say, I really don't know for certain. Just my assumptions.
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Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:35 pm
Nolan says...



they'd probably make him drink some whiskey to dull the pain, reach into the hole (hands, fork, tongs, forceps, pretty much whatever they had) and pull the bullet out, then pour whiskey in/on it to clean it. afterwards, they'd probably tie a piece of cloth (ripped from shirt/pants/etc.) around the wound to apply pressure and keep it from bleeding until they could get to a hospital.
"Don't worry about my sanity, dear. After all, it's pointless to worry about something that's nonexistent."

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Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:20 pm
J_Fang says...



In 1867 cased ammunition was very rare, so assuming its a musket ball wound it would depend on the depth.

If it penetrated deeply, without a physician present, the woman of the house would probably have doused the wound in a form of alcohol, stitched it closed and applied a compress of light cotton cloth in several folded layers wrapped tightly around the torso.

If it was possible to retrieve the ball then they would probably use a combination of a bowie style knife and have cut/dug the round out. Possibly with the tip of the knife, their fingers and/or small tongs if available.

Then it would be stitched closed after thoroughly cleaning the wound with water and alcohol.

The man would probably experience high fever and great pain for several days with someone constantly watching over him, while a practiced physician was summoned.

It is possible him to survive.

Of course if the round didn't lodge and it went straight through, probably some stitches, alcohol and a thorough cleaning would have been enough.

Though a doctor would still probably have been summoned if possible.

Not an expert or anything, but given the time period and the fact that a large number gunshot wounds were treated by amputation...seems plausible.

A lot of gunshot wounds were treated without anesthesia, although if enough alcohol was present it would have probably been used.

Of course, blunt trauma anesthesia isn't out of the question for a "gritty" kind of story.
  





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Fri May 08, 2009 8:05 pm
Joyfulnoise says...



I'm not sure how it'd be treated, but I can assure you everyone in the house would be in a manic state, considering people of that era were deathly afraid of infection, which they called "gangrene". If it was one of his arms or legs, and if it was infected, you can be assured that they would have sawed it off with an extremely evil looking serated saw while he bit on a whisky-soaked rag.
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Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:41 pm
Katriona says...



I don't know much about that time period, but I have been doing a lot of research on bullet wounds in general.
No matter where the wound is, it is best not to move the patient. If it is near the heart, he will most likely die, even if it didn't hit the heart. If it is near the lungs, there is a possibility that he will drown-- in his own blood-- or suffocate when his lungs deflate. There is always a possibility that it did not hit the lungs, and did not hit the body with enough impact to harm the lungs. Whether it did or not, your character will go into shock. Somebody would press something against the wound until it stopped bleeding. You could bandage it after the bleeding has slowed down, and then you would NOT take off the bandage when it became soaked. You would add more cloth. you only change the bandage if the bleeding has stopped entirely.
Like I said, I don't know how much they knew about the body back then. You should do your own research. Even if you got 50 pages of answers on Young Writers Society, it would not compensate for doing your own research.
I hope that helps, and doesn't make you sick.
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Mon Apr 05, 2010 6:01 pm
Fishr says...



What researchers fail to comprehend is that modern medicine today was directly influenced by 18th Century medicine. The difference between the 18th and mid 19th Century was physians of the 1700s did not know about infection. Therefore the wounds were not directly subjected to any form of an antiseptic.

"Old medicine" practices were herbs and using cob webs of a spider to quagulate the blood flow. (Very useful if dressing is not handy, by the way, for minor injuries).

A link on 18th Century Medicine:
(Time to get yourself familiar)
http://www.i-is.com/users/clairflats/wpmedicine3.htm

19th Medicine:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/faculties/medicine ... thcentury/

Tools of a 18th C. Doc:
Image

Without knowing the cause of the wound; musket or rifle, it's hard to determine survival because you do not tell us. A lead ball is certain of death when it's louged near organs, the heart or hitting a lung. Reason is, muskets were notoriously inaccurate so to "hit anything," it had to be close range, approx. 100 to 150 yards away. At such a close distance the ball would certaintly go in deep. However, balls entering the skull; patience have survived too under the skilled physian.

In your char's predicument, without a properly trained person, death is definitely a certaintly, and quickly as his body will undergo shock and the brain will begin to shutdown all organs because of the shock. That is why when soldiers were impaled by a bayonet, death was certain. An alian object went in, and the body goes into a "self-protection mode," thus the brain starts shutting down one organ at a time, not realizing the decesion is killing you, the person slowly.

I am by no means an expert but live in a house with a sister training to be an RN. My uncle has been an RN for twelve years and my grandfather was an EMT. Medicine is something I've grown accustomed too, and thoroughly enjoy learning about it. I find the subject facinating.

Best of luck.
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