Curing Bullet Wounds Page Menu:    1    2    3    4       Next>>

Curing Bullet Wounds in the Golden Age of Pyracy, Page 1

Black-beard shoots Isreal Hands by Frank E. Shcoonover "One night, drinking with in his cabin with [Israel] Hands, the pilot, and another man, Black-beard, without any provocation, privately draws out a small pair of pistols, and cocks them under the table. While being perceived by the man, he withdrew and went upon deck, leaving Hands, the pilot, and the Captain together. When the pistols were ready, he blew out the candle and crossing his hands, discharged them at his company. Hands, the master, was shot through the knee and lamed for life; the other pistol did no execution. Being asked the meaning of this, he only answered them by damning them, That if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who he was. " (Charles Johnson, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, p. 56)

While this may have seemed to the pirate Blackbeard an effective deterrent to memory loss, it was probably not an activity that would be joyfully embraced by a ship's surgeon.

"Wounds made by Gun-shot, differ much from others in their Figure and in themselves, for they are generally round and others long, besides, they are always made with a Laceration and Contusion of the Flesh, but those made with a Sword or other cutting Weapons, only divide the part without Bruising or Tearing it." (Mathias Gottfried, Chirugia Curiousa: or, the newest and most curious observations and operations in the whole art of chirurgery, p. 184)

As guns gained in popularity as weapons of war throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, so the advances in treatment of gunshot wounds. There were a wide variety of opinions about the nature and treatment of these relatively novel wounds. You may wonder at my use of the word "novel" in regard to a wound that had been around for over 200 years. Keep in mind that while scientific progress was being made in medicine all throughout the Golden Age of Pyracy (or GAoP which ran from ~1680 through 1725), most of the medical teaching was still rooted in the works of the "Ancients," most of whom wrote before gunshot wounds existed. Much of the surgical knowledge of the day was still being taught from the works of Hippocrates (who died around 370 BC) and Galen (who died around 200 AD.) Considering this and the slow rate of information dissemination, the issue of how surgeons should treat this "new" type of wound was still being discussed, although it was becoming better and better defined.

'Poysonous Gun-shot Wounds'?

One of the early beliefs about wounds from bullets was that they were poisonous. This may have been based on the appearance of such wounds and the way they responded to early methods of treatment. By the late 17th century, most surgeons seemed to recognize that the wounds were not poisonous. Writing as early as the late 16th century, the esteemed French Chirurgeon (surgeon) Ambroise Paré stated the case against poisoned gunshot wounds in his influential book The Apologie and Treatise of Ambroise Paré [Note: I have inserted some notes and paragraph breaks for readability]:

Ambroise Paré, painted by William Holl "I had read in John de Vigo [one of the 'Ancients' according to Paré; de Vigo was a Spanish surgeon who died in the 1520], in the first booke of wounds in generall, the eighth chapter, that wounds made by weapons of fire did participate of Venenosity [were venemous - or poisoned], by reason of the pouder, and for their cure commands to cauterize [burn] them with oyle of Elders scalding hot, in which should be mingled a little Treackle [theriac - an antidote to poison]; and not to faile, before I would apply of sayd oyle, knowing that such a thing might bring to the Patient great paine...

I was willing to know first, before I applied it, how the other Chirurgions did for the first dressing, which was to apply the sayd oyle the hottest that was possible into the wounds, with tents [rolls of absorbent material, often medicated to keep a wound open] and setons [material such as thread, wire, or gauze that intended to encourage pus and allow it to escape]; insomuch that I tooke courage to doe as they did.

At last I wanted oyle, and was constrained in steed thereof, to apply a digestive [substance to promote healthy pus formation in a wound] of yolkes of egges, oyle of Roses, and Turpentine. In the night I could not sleepe in quiet, fearing some default in not cauterizing, that I should finde those to whom I had not used the burning oyle dead imposysoned; which made me rise very early to visit them, where beyond my expectation I found those to whom I had applied my digestive medicine, to feele little paine, and their wounds without inflammation or tumor, having rested reasonable well in the night: the others to whom was used the sayd burning oyle, I found them feverish, with great paine and tumour about the edges of their wounds. And then I resolved with my selfe never so cruelly, to burne poore men wounded with gunshot." (Paré, p. 23-4)

This was something of a lightning bolt moment for Paré and one that allowed him to move away from painful cauterization as a 'cure' for the poison in bullet wounds.

John Woodall, the esteemed author of the surgions mate, the first book on sea surgery, seems to takes a middling stance, eschewing cauterization, but suggesting that antidotes should still be used to offset the poisons that might exist in bullet wounds. (Note that errors in the spelling are from the original document. I think they add flavor.)

John Woodall, the surgions mate author "If you feare venomous vapors may be gathered, give him of good Mithridate, Venice Trekell [a complex medicine thought to be an antidote to poison] {half dram}. These rules at Sea are not so well to be observed as at Land: wherefore let the Sea-Surgion therein doe his best, let his ordinary drinke be Ptisans, or barley water: conceale from him the magnitude of his wound: keepe him loose onely with glisters [enemas], or suppositories: let him bloud if neede be, and yet but a litle, lest poyson or venome setled in the outward parts, be thereby drawne in backe into the more noble parts: and abstaine to give him remedies calefying [clearing out] the [bad] humour, especiall at first." (Woodall, p. 141)

It is interesting that Woodall still believed that bullet wounds could contain poison. Paré's works had been translated into English decades before Woodall's first publishing of his master work on sea surgery. This may hint at how slowly new ideas traveled. It should also be noted that the last publishing of Woodall's book was in 1655, thirty years before the Golden Age of Piracy. It may still have been circulating through the sea-going world as only a few sea-surgeon specific manuals had been published up until that time, so the presentation of his ideas here does have some merit.

Most of the modern GAoP medical authors agree with Paré, though. Purrman gives a most scientific rationale for his conclusions:

"…the Opinion and Practice [of cauterization] are equally scandalous, for the Bullet flying with the force communicated to it by the Powder, may carry with it pieces of our Cloaths, of what is nearest into the Wound, yet the Bullet cannot burn the Flesh. And as for the Notion of Poyson which they thought accompanied the Bullet, I could never find any, nor can I imagine how they should go to work, to make a Bullet so Poysonous that the subtil Fire of the Gun-Powder would not spoil the Effects of it, nor how many are there that carry Bullets in their Bodies several years without any danger of Poyson."  (Purrman, p. 184)

By 1742, John Atkins writing on his experiences during the end of the GAoP dismisses poisonous bullet quickly with:

"When Gunshot was novel, these Wounds, by their livid Colour, were taken to be gangrened or poisoned; and not unlike the former; for we find the Extinction of Heat is owing to the Greatness of the Contusion..." (Atkins,p. 150)

If Atkins is typical of a sea surgeon during this time, it suggests the belief in the possibility of poison in gunshot wounds was likely minimal by the time of the Golden Age of Piracy.

Curing Bullet Wounds Page Menu:    1    2    3    4       Next>>