of cases treated. Among the officers the proportion was rather more favorable. But this percentage includes those cases in which attempts had been made to preserve the limb, and failure resulting, amputation was resorted to as a last chance of saving the patient, so that they ought to have been excluded from the lists of amputations, both primary and secondary, as commonly interpreted. On account of this comparatively indifferent success of amputation, resection of portions of the shaft of the femur was sometimes practiced; but the records state that no success attended the experiment, every case, without exception, having proved fatal. In considering the results of gunshot fractures of the femur, the situation of the injury is a matter of great importance, whether as regards chances of recovery without or with amputation. In the Surgical History of the Crimean Campaign this fact is shown in the results of amputation; but the distinction is not made in regard to the recoveries without amputation. Dr. Macleod, in his Notes, remarks that he has only been able to discover three cases in which recovery followed a compound fracture in the upper third of the femur without amputation: one, that of an officer of the 17th Regiment; the second, of a soldier of the 62d; and a third, whose regiment is not named. A case, however, was under the care of the writer, not included in the above, nor appearing in the official history of the war; and one, judging from the results described in Dr. Macleod’s Notes, more fortunate in its issue than at least two of the number he mentions. With regard to the first patient, Dr. Macleod states he has been informed “that although his limb was in a very good condition when he left for England, the trouble it has since given him, and the deformed condition in which it remains, makes it by no means an agreeable appendage;”[12] in the second, the fracture was in the lower part of the upper third, and the injury was comparatively slight; in the third, a mass of callus was thrown out which connected the bone, but he died of purulent poisoning, and never left the Crimea. In the case which was under the writer, the fracture was within the upper third; there is no distortion, and shortening only of 1–1/2 inches; the officer is able to walk or ride without any inconvenience, and competent for all duty. All the circumstances were most favorable for recovery in this instance; and a consideration of these on the one hand, and the experience of the unfavorable results of amputation in this region on the other, led to the effort to save the limb. A short history of this case will be useful. Lieutenant D. M., 19th Regiment, aged seventeen, of sanguine temperament, healthy frame, was brought up to camp about 4 A.M. Sept. 9th, 1855. He had been wounded in the assault upon the Redan in the upper part of the left thigh, and had been lying by the side of the ditch where he fell thirteen hours. When discovered, he was carried carefully in a