in consequence of large vessels or nerves being implicated in the injuries, leading more often to primary hemorrhage and subsequent sloughing of wider tracts than in wounds from direct projectiles of corresponding size. Such sloughing may lead to a fracture of bone becoming compound which was at first simple. Fragments of shells sometimes wound by falling, after having been projected upward in the air. These do not generally produce such serious injuries as fragments striking at once from the exploded shell; not that the force is different, but because the parts chiefly exposed—the shoulders, back, etc.—are more protected from injury, and offer less resistance, from relative form and position, than do the abdomen, loins, and other parts of the body, which usually meet the fragments shot upward when the shell explodes on the ground. =Degree of velocity.=—The velocity of motion of different projectiles is an important ingredient in the consideration of the several wounds produced by them. The rates of motion imparted to missiles by the fire–arms of early times were probably, from the imperfect construction of the weapons, defective quality of gunpowder, and other circumstances, as inferior to those of the musket lately in use as the velocity of musket–balls was to that of the conical bullets of the rifles in present use. In a table showing the velocities of certain moving bodies, published in 1851, the common musket–bullet is set down as moving at the rate of 850 miles per hour, the rifle–ball of that time at 1000, the 24–lb. cannon–ball at 1600 miles per hour. But the musket–ball then could not be depended on to hit an object beyond 80 yards, the rifle 200 to 250 yards; while the present Enfield rifle is sighted to 900 yards, and the short Enfield to 1100 yards. The effects of different rates of velocity on wounds are seen in the variations which occur in proportion to the distance which the missile has traveled before inflicting the injury. A cannon–ball which, with but slight velocity of motion added to its weight, would knock a man over, at ordinary speed will carry away a limb without disturbing the general equilibrium of the body. A musket–ball that would be arrested half way through a limb is now replaced by a ball which, at like distance from the point of discharge, will pass through several bodies in succession.