With regard to gunshot fractures in the middle and lower third of the femur, the experience of the French and English armies in the Crimea has tended to confirm the doctrine of the older military surgeons, that many lives are lost which might be otherwise preserved, by trying to save limbs; and that, of the limbs preserved, many are little better than incumbrances to their possessors. In the late Italian battles, the practice of trying to save lower extremities, after comminuted fractures in these situations of the thigh, appears to have been abandoned. Eight cases of union after compound gunshot fractures of the femur in these situations have, however, returned from the late mutiny in India; and this is a much larger proportion than was that of the recoveries from the Crimea. Dr. Williamson, who records these cases, is inclined to attribute this success in a great measure to the use of dooleys for the conveyance of wounded, and argues that it would be advantageous to introduce them into European warfare. But wounds generally, where proper care is taken, heal more favorably in southern latitudes, east or west, probably owing to the climate admitting of so much more free an access of fresh air by day and night to the patient than can be afforded, without inconvenience, in colder or more variable climates. The dooley is most advantageous and comfortable as used in the East, where it is an ordinary mode of conveyance among all classes, and the bearers—a special race in each Presidency—are trained from childhood to the occupation; but, from experience of the peculiar habits and tenets of these men, both Madrassees and those of Bengal, it seems scarcely probable that they would prove efficient, even if they could exist, or that their wants could be provided for in the numbers necessary to be serviceable, with armies in northern latitudes. French surgeons have remarked how much more favorably, _cæteris paribus_, wounds heal in Algeria, where they have only the same kinds of conveyance for wounded as in Europe; and the difference is accounted for by the favorable influence in this respect of a warmer climate.