As the metallic particles, showing the path of the missile, appear to be next to the plate, the course of the missile was from the external border of the tendo Achillis diagonally downward and forward, causing only a slight fissure of the calcaneus. A missile, to have done so little damage and to have left a metallic track showing its contact with the bone, must have been unjacketed and of low velocity, and therefore a shrapnel ball. [Illustration: Plate 152.] SHRAPNEL--PLATE 152. LOWER EXTREMITY. Gunshot Wound of the Heel, with Lodgment of the Missile. The tibial side of the foot lay next to the photographic plate. The normal size, great density, and sharp outline of the shadow of the shrapnel ball show that it lay also close to the plate and about an inch below the inside of the body of the calcaneus. No metallic particles mark the track of the ball in this case, because the course was parallel to the inner surface of the bursa without forceful, or perhaps any, contact with the bursa, and passing through soft tissue, only. [Illustration: Plate 153.] SHRAPNEL--PLATE 153. LOWER EXTREMITY. Gunshot Wound of the Heel, with Lodgment of the Missile. That the inner border of the foot lay next to the plate is shown by the articulation between astragalus, scaphoid, internal cuneiform, and first metatarsal. The metallic particles show the course of the ball from the posterior calcaneo-astragaloid ligament to below the anterior inferior border of the calcaneus. As the shadow of the ball is enlarged and the shadow of the fragments blurred, their position is not near the plate and their location is therefore on the external plane of the calcaneus, with the ball lying near the sole. [Illustration: Plate 154.] SHRAPNEL--PLATE 154. LOWER EXTREMITY. Gunshot Wound of the Foot. The plate shows, in the wound of entrance, the metal particles deposited by a shrapnel ball which passed out of the sole of the foot without damage to the bone. The missile carried some small particles of lead, almost wholly detached by a ricochet before striking the foot, which were scraped off as it passed through the skin. The wound was infected, and radiography was indicated for diagnosis. [Illustration: Plate 155.] SHRAPNEL--PLATE 155. LOWER EXTREMITY. Gunshot Wound of the Foot. The sole of the foot lay next to the plate. While the very clear, sharp outlines of the metal fragments would seem to show them very near the plate and consequently at the platen side of the tarsus, the foot is not of sufficient thickness to make a very appreciable difference between shadows of such fragments on the dorsal and on the plantar surfaces of the metatarsus. It is very probable that the ball struck the convex, rather than the concave outline of the transverse arch, as the missile has escaped with no fracture of the bones, which would have been very difficult in mechanical accomplishment if its course had been along the convex outline.