NOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS

OF AN

AMBULANCE SURGEON,

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF WORK DONE UNDER THE
RED CROSS DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF 1870.

BY

WILLIAM MAC CORMAC,

F.R.C.S., M.A., M.R.I.A.

ASSISTANT-SURGEON TO ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL, CONSULTING SURGEON TO THE GENERAL
HOSPITAL, BELFAST, AND MEMBER OF SENATE OF THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY.

LONDON PARDON AND SON, PRINTERS, PATERNOSTER ROW

Dedication.

ΤΟ MY

COLLEAGUES OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN AMBULANCE

I DEDICATE

THIS RECORD OF OUR JOINT LABOURS

AS A

TOKEN OF MY AFFECTIONATE RECOLLECTION.

WILLIAM MAC CORMAC.

Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum.”

PREFACE.

A CONSIDERABLE portion of this little work consists of communications which have recently been made to the British Medical Journal, to whose Editor, when he saw him abroad, the Author had promised to give some account of his surgical experiences at the seat of war. These papers are now reprinted with several additions, along with a few plates representing some examples of gun-shot fractures of the bones.

The author does not purpose to give any systematic account of gun-shot wounds, but simply a record of his personal experience, and the impressions he derived from the rather novel circumstances in which he found himself placed. The form in which it is published is somewhat that of a diary, since he has repeated as closely as possible the expressions which are