Much has been written on the comparative surgical effects of bullets of various weights and sizes; but these qualities do not, on consideration, excite so much practical interest in the mind of the surgeon as it might at first appear they are calculated to do. Some very heavy bullets were used by the Russians in the defense of Sebastopol, nearly one–third heavier than any employed by the troops opposed to them. Such bullets, if of like form and density, and propelled with equal velocity, would obviously inflict injuries—especially against osseous structures, which offer great resistance—wider in proportion to their greater size and momentum; but, in respect to simple flesh wounds, the increased size of the wound left by the larger ball would make little difference in the gravity of the wound, or the time required for its cure, while the escape of foreign substances, which it might happen to carry with it, would be facilitated by the freer means of exit and increased discharge from the surface. Mr. Guthrie mentions that, having had a wide field for observation in the effects of the heavy British musket–ball, sixteen to the pound, on the French wounded, he did not think them more mischievous in their results than the French musket–balls, twenty to the pound, on the English soldiers; while the advantages of carrying a lighter musket and greater number of rounds of ammunition were on the side of our adversaries. It is understood that in warfare the object is not so much to destroy life as to disable antagonists, and the smaller size has been supposed to be fully equal to this object by the British military authorities of the present day; for in the weapon most recently given to the troops, the Enfield rifle, the weight of the ball has been reduced two drachms and a half below that of the ball with the Minié, previously in use. After all, within the moderate limits which must be preserved to suit the circumstances of infantry soldiers, the form and velocity of musket–balls must be the qualities of interest to the surgeon in connection with the wounds inflicted by them, rather than their weight or size, as with projectiles from guns of large caliber.