Course of the Bullet

DIAGRAM SHOWING NATURE OF WOUNDS.

     A prominent Cincinnati surgeon gives the above diagram. Said he: “The wound made by the bullet glancing off the breast bone is trivial. The dangerous wound is the one through the stomach. The bullet entered an inch and a half to the left of the navel, passed through the front and rear walls of the stomach, and then probably imbedded itself in the heavy, inch-and-a-half thick muscles along the spinal column. Perhaps the bullet was stopped by the bones of the spinal column. If I remember rightly, the bullet that killed President Garfield also hit the spinal column, splintering the bones protecting the vital spinal cord. The report says no holes were found in the intestines in President McKinley’s case. There are evidently intestines along the bullet’s course between its point of entrance and the stomach, and how the bullet failed to penetrate them is hard to understand. After leaving the rear wall of the stomach, the bullet may have penetrated the kidney.”