Iron County Register

The report just published by three Russian army doctors in Manchuria—Dr. Zoge von Manteuffel, Dr. Kholine and Dr. Zeldovitch, on the character of the wounds inflicted by the Japanese rifle bullets, confirms existing evidence, says the Lancet, that modern gun making tends to increase the death roll of a battle, but to reduce the list of wounded to a minimum, while the amount of suffering endured from gunshot wounds is growing incredibly small. During the South African war the Mauser bullet was shown to have dealt gently with its victims while performing its deadly work, but the humanitarian perfection attained by the Japanese rifle is so much greater than that of the Mauser as to sound almost like a dream.

The sober medical report from the hospital wards reminds one of the old Arabian story of the skillful executioner whose victim's head remained attached to the trunk even after the Damascus blade had whistled through the neck, but fell off as soon as the condemned man bowed in supplication before the cadi. Owing to the extraordinary velocity of the Japanese missile, says Dr. Kholine, there is no portion of the human structure that can deflect it from its course. A book three and a half inches thick and bound in wood would fail to do so. Wounds caused by it perforate the body in a clean, straight line drawn with mathematical accuracy, the exit of the bullet being marked by no greater orifice than the entry, not the tiniest bruise being apparent, and the two openings being so small that in many cases the surgeon fails to discover them without the help of the patient.

Dr. von Manteuffel cites cases of officers shot through the leg, chest or neck and still able to retain their commands as if nothing had happened. Dr. Zeldovitch saw soldiers on the march with wounds straight through the thorax, which they had received some 30 kilometers back along the line of retreat, and Dr. Kholine speaks of a man remaining on active service in spite of a bullet wound right through the chest, between the second and third ribs. The elasticity of the pulmonary tissue is supposed to contribute to these astonishing results, while as for abdominal wounds peritonitis seems practically unknown, the fiber of the intestine closing automatically behind the bullet, which never carries a particle of the clothing into the wound, a clean cut snip like that made by a pair of tailor's scissors being all that is observable upon the cloth.

These results may well be contrasted with those reported after the massacre of January 22 this year in St. Petersburg. There, for fear of killing people at a great distance, the troops had been ordered to fire at the ground a few feet before the first line of the crowd. The wounds were consequently all caused by ricocheting bullets and resembled in their horrible character the effects of bursting bombs.