A musket–ball ordinarily causes either one wound, as when after entering it lodges, or, as sometimes happens, from its escaping again by the wound of entrance; or two wounds, from making its exit at some point remote from the spot where it entered; but occasionally leads to a greater number of openings. This last result may happen from the ball splitting into two or more portions within the body, and causing so many wounds of exit. A case occurred to M. Dupuytren, where a ball split against the spine of the tibia; and after traversing the calf of the leg in two directions, entered the other leg at two points,—one ball thus causing five orifices. A case occurred to the writer, in the Crimea, where a cylindro–conoidal rifle–ball with three canalures, after fracturing the cranium, was cut in two by the upper edge of bone at the seat of fracture, smoothly as if by a sharp instrument. One part glanced off, the other entered the cranium. A strange feature in this case was, that the depressed portion, after admitting the ball, closed up again; so that no aperture, but only a slight depressed line of fracture, was visible.[3] A somewhat similar case occurred in the 38th Regiment, but the ball appears to have been a round one. M. Huguier has collected some curious cases of splitting of balls, from the records of the French revolution: among others, the division of a ball into two parts, of another into three parts, against the supra–orbital ridge, and of another into three parts against the clavicle. A case is recorded, where a grenadier in Algeria was wounded in five places, all wounds of entrance, by one ball. It was divided into five portions by first striking against a rock at five or six paces from the soldier, the fragments rebounding at various angles. John Hunter mentions the case of a young gentleman who was shot through the abdomen by means of a musket loaded with three balls. In this instance there were only two orifices of entrance and two of exit, one ball having followed in the track of one of the others; “that there were three that went through him was evident, for they afterward made three holes in the wainscot behind him, but two very near each other.” Had it not been for this proof, it being known that three balls were discharged, a suspicion might have existed that one of the three balls had lodged. The recollection that such accidents may occur will sometimes assist in the diagnosis of doubtful cases.