CURIOUS WOUNDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16050, 16 October 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

CURIOUS WOUNDS.

AN INTERESTING PROBLEM. Tab men in the trenches, especially in wet weather, get every part of their clothes smeared with mud ; indeed, it -was. often difficult to say in the winter if any' part of a man's clothing was visible through the khaki-coloured mud with which it was caked. A bullet or the splinter of a shell carries this mud, and frequently a particle of clothing, into the wound, and both are pretty sure to be impregnated with the dread disease. To take no chances, every man has his dose of serum, however lightly he may be bit. and tetanus has in consequence says Mr. H. F. Prevost Battersby, in the Daily Graphic, almost lost that terror for the surgeon which it had in the early battles of the war; and with a larger practice in dosage the serum can now be administered with almost complete r security. The fighting at Hooge on July 30 produced what may probably prove an interesting problem. Many of the wounds received there were discovered, when examined in the clearing hospital 48 hours later, to be infected with fly maggots. Such cases are bound to" occur where flies are plentiful and the first field dressing cannot be applied immediately after the wound is received or the bandaging is careless. The curious feature was that every wound so infected showed cleaner and healthier than those in which no maggots were found.