of new enterprises. Some of this work is now done by the National Physical Laboratory, which should therefore be placed under the control of the new department. The results of these studies should be given freely to all British enquirers who can make practical use of them. In the United States and Germany much more investigation and research work is undertaken by government departments than is the case in this country; and the results are freely given to those engaged in the industries concerned.

Another question for the Ministry of Commerce will be whether this country cannot be made more selfsupporting in war-time by encouraging production in certain lines which before the war were in the hands of foreign nations. In the past we have imported many articles and products which could have been made or grown at an equally low cost in this country. The fact that we did not produce these goods, while having equal natural facilities with other nations, proves that our manufacturers and producers were not so efficient as their foreign rivals; and the reasons for this state of things may well be studied by the new government department. There is also the question of financial assistance for commercial undertakings, which is likely to reach an acute stage after the war. Here again the favourable attitude of a government department, with perhaps some measure of control until the money is secured, will in all probability attract the private investor. A Ministry of Commerce would also deal with such of the government munition factories as are available for other purposes after the war. These factories, with their equipment, will form a valuable national asset if they can be set to work.

W. O. HORSNAILL.

Art. 8.

-THE EARLY TREATMENT OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS.

1. Buch der Cirurgia. By Hieronymo Brunschwig. Strassburg, 1497.

2. Practica in Arte Chirurgica copiosa. By Giovanni de Vigo. Rome, 1514.

3. Feldtbuch der Wundt-Artzney. By Hans von Gersdorff. Strassburg, 1517.

4. De Chirurgia Scriptores Optimi, quique veteres et recentiores. By Conrad Gesner. Zurich, 1555.

5. Euvres complètes d'Ambroise Paré: revues et collationnées sur toutes les Éditions. By J. F. Malgaigne. Three vols, with critical and historical chapters. Paris: Baillière, 1840.

6. Historische Studien über die Beurtheilung und Behandlung der Schusswunden. By Theodor Billroth. Berlin: Reimer, 1859.

7. Ambroise Paré and his Times, 1510-1590. By Stephen Paget. Putnam's Sons, 1897.

8. Geschichte der Chirurgie und ihrer Ausübung. By E. J. Gurlt. Three vols. Berlin: Hirschwald, 1898.

DESPITE the claim that is sometimes made for the great antiquity of the invention of gunpowder, it seems to have been unknown in Europe until the 13th century; and its discovery is usually attributed to the Franciscan Friar, Roger Bacon (1214-1292). Gunpowder is described by Bacon in his 'Epistolae de secretis operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae,' a work which is certainly not later than 1249, since it is dedicated to William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, who died in that year. Its application to military purposes is sometimes placed to the credit of a semi-mythical German monk, Berthold the Black, about the year 1313.

In the second decade of the 14th century, cannon were manufactured at Ghent; and they were probably introduced into England in 1314, the year of the battle of Bannockburn. The English are believed to have made use of them in the campaign in Scotland in 1327, and cannon were certainly used by our troops at the battle of Crécy in 1346; while at the siege of Harfleur in 1415 there was a regular service of ordnance. In the

meantime the value of these instruments of warfare had been recognised by other nations; and the extraordinary achievements of the blind Czech general, John Ziska (1376-1424), in the Hussite wars were largely due to the efficiency of his field artillery. These early cannon fired great darts or stones. At the siege of Constantinople in 1453 the Turks made considerable use of artillery; and some of their pieces survived to engage the British squadron that forced the Dardanelles in 1807.

Hand-guns were invented later than these large pieces, and made their first appearance about the middle of the 15th century. They were massive and clumsy, and could only be used by a mounted man or from a cart; and, in spite of various improvements, they were for many years built of so heavy a type that they needed a special support when fired.* The use of a wide butt, bent at an angle, transformed the original gun or 'busse' into a 'harquebusse,' 'arquebus,' or 'hackbutt.' To this weapon a Nuremberg inventor, about 1515, fitted a wheellock; and, when provided with a flint or other percussion apparatus, the instrument became a 'musket.' Handguns were at first used for discharging arrows and stones, bullets being a later invention. Not until the 17th century, however, did the English entirely abandon the bow in favour of the musket.† Even after the bow had gone out of use for the propulsion of penetrating shafts, it was still retained for the discharge of incendiary arrows. They were regarded as especially valuable in naval warfare, and were in use so late as the middle of the 17th century. Fire lances similarly fitted were used for the last time in Europe in the first siege of Bristol in 1649, but fire arrows were used by the Chinese against the French so late as 1860.§ Hand grenades, much like those now adopted for trench warfare, were

* The history of firearms is given in two works by Max Jähns, 'Handbuch einer Geschichte des Kriegswesens,' Leipzig, 1880; and Entwickelungsgeschichte der alten Trutzwaffen, mit einem Anhange über die Feuerwaffen,' Berlin, 1899.

† See Sir Henry Knyvett's 'Defence of the Realme,' edited by Charles Hughes, Oxford, 1906, p. xxxii, etc.

Nathaniel Nye, Master Gunner of the City of Worcester, The Art of Gunnery,' London, 1647.

§ H. W. L. Hime, 'Gunpowder and Ammunition. Their Origin and Progress,' London, 1904.

in constant use in the 16th and 17th centuries. They consisted of a spherical explosive or incendiary bomb, or of an explosive canister, mounted on a throwing stick and provided with a fuse.*

References to wounds by firearms are scarce in early medical literature, and find no place in the Cyrurgie' of the Belgian, Meester Jan Yperman (1295-1351); in the 'Grande Chirurgie' of Guy de Chauliac, that appeared about 1350; or in the works of John of Arderne,† who was living in 1370 and is said to have been present at the battle of Crecy. Nor is gunpowder even mentioned in the writings of such surgeons as Balescon de Tarente (Valescus de Taranta), Giovanni Matteo Ferrario da Grado (de Gradibus), and Leonardo Bertapaglia, who lived in the 15th century and saw the dawn of the revival of learning. Perhaps this absence of allusion to gunshot wounds is capable of a simple explanation. Since, as we have seen, projectiles from firearms were for long of no specialised type, the wounds caused by these arrows, darts or stones probably called for no special remark. In the 15th century, however, and still more in the following century, surgical works were frequently enlivened by pictures of so-called 'wound-men,' in which the artist attempted to depict on one figure every possible variety of injury. The wound-men' sometimes display, among other agents of injury, certain ball-like objects which we may suppose to have been hurled from the cannon's mouth.

Probably the earliest known surgical work in which a reference to our subject appears is the Vademecum ' of Marcello Cumano, dating from about the middle of the 15th century. In that compilation a few words are devoted to the pain caused by gunshot wounds. A little more definite information is provided by the Thuringian, Heinrich von Pfolsprundt, who composed his 'Buch der Bündth-Ertznei' in 1460.§ Pfolsprundt devotes

·

*Peter Whitehorne, Certaine Wayes for the ordering of Souldieurs in Battleray,' London, 1560.

+ So I am informed by Mr D'Arcy Power.

H. Fröhlich, under heading, 'Pfolsprundt,' in E. Gurlt and A. Hirsch's 'Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte,' vol. iv, p. 555; Vienna, 1886.

§ Edited by H. Haeser and A. Middeldorpf, Berlin, 1868.

himself mainly to arrow wounds; and, in the case of embedded arrow-heads, he advises the surgeon to await suppuration before attempting their removal, an operation which should be performed about twelve or fourteen days after the date of injury. Gunpowder should be rinsed from a wound with the milk of a woman or of a goat, the projectile, if present, being removed with the help of a sound, and the wound mollified with lotions made from gentian, turnips and other vegetables.

Towards the end of the 15th century we begin to have more extensive information touching the surgical treatment of gunshot wounds. The Buch der Cirurgia' of Hieronymo Brunschwig, printed in Strassburg in 1497,* contains both a brief description of wounds caused by firearms and advice for their treatment. Brunschwig, who was an Alsatian, relates that he learned his art of bullet extraction from a certain Hans von Dockenburg, to whom tradition attributes the cure of an obstinate wound sustained by Matthias Corvinus (1450-1490), King of Hungary, in an affray against the Moldavians. For four years, the story runs, the Hungarian monarch sought a cure and offered riches and honour to any who should heal him, until at last, in 1468, the cure was wrought by this Alsatian surgeon.t

A short chapter of Brunschwig's book tells in his quaint dialect of one who has been shot with a bullet so that the powder has poisoned the wound and the ball remains therein.' If the limb is penetrated, Brunschwig advises us to 'take a silken thread and thrust it through the sinus and draw it back and forth so as to evacuate the powder from the wound.' When the shot still remains in the wound, we must make the wound wider by cutting, . . . and then skilfully and neatly seize it with a bullet forceps (Kugelzangen) and draw it out. But, if the wound cannot be cut or enlarged, use the iron instrument called the "stork's beak" ("Storchenschnabel")' (Fig. 4 (1)). This terrible wound-dilater was in use down to modern times, and underwent modification at the hands of several surgeons in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. It was often elaborated into an engine of three or four

* This work was reproduced in facsimile by G. Klein; München, 1911. Theodor Billroth, op. cit., p. 7.