The proportion of recoveries in amputations in the upper third of the femur in the Crimean war was under 13 per cent. Amputation at the hip–joint, both in the French and English armies, in all instances proved fatal. The two patients who survived the longest were operated on by the late Director–General after the battle of the Alma: one, a soldier of the 33d Regiment, died at Scutari three weeks after the operation; the second, a Russian, died on the thirtieth day after, from “extensive sloughing and great debility.”[14] One case of excision of the head, neck, and trochanter of the femur in the Crimea recovered, operated upon by Dr. O’Leary; the only known successful case of excision of the hip–joint after a gunshot wound. The operation was performed on the same day that the wound was received. In the Sleswick–Holstein campaigns, amputation at the hip–joint was performed seven times; one patient only survived, a young man, aged seventeen years, operated upon by Dr. Langenbeck. Resection of the upper part of the femur, including the head and two inches below the small trochanter, was performed once, but the patient died from pyemia. At the post–mortem examination, the right shoulder and ankle joints were found to be filled with pus. The operation in this instance was performed three weeks after the injury. No case of amputation, nor of resection, at the hip–joint has returned from the Indian mutiny. M. Legouest, in a recent essay in the _Memoirs of the Society of Surgery_, at Paris, maintains that amputation at the hip–joint should be reserved for cases of fracture with injury to the great vessels, and that where the vessels have escaped, resection should invariably be performed. He also inculcates, as a general principle, not to perform immediate _primary_ amputation at the hip–joint in any case; but, even in the severest forms of injury, to postpone the operation as long as possible.[15] For the _consecutive_ results of gunshot wounds, the operation presents a less unfavorable aspect than for immediate injuries. M. Jules Roux has recently, at Toulon, performed amputation at the hip–joint six times for the consequences of wounds received during the war in Italy, and of these, four have been successful.