[p. 147] there is less brain in that
part of the head, more persons who are wounded in the back part of
the head escape than of those who wounded in the anterior part. And
in fatal cases, a man will survive longer in winter than in summer,
whatever be the part of the head in which the wound is situated.
Part 3
As to the haedrae (dints or marks?) of sharp and light weapons, when
they take place in the bone without fissure, contusion, or depression
inwards (and these take place equally in the anterior and posterior
part of the head), death, when it does occur, does not properly result
from them. A suture appearing in a wound, when the bone is laid bare,
on whatever part of the head the wound may have been inflicted, is
the weakest point of the head to resist a blow or a weapon, when the
weapon happens to be impinged into the suture itself; but more especially
when this occurs in the bregma at the weakest part of the head, and
the sutures happen to be situated near the wound, and the weapon has
hit the sutures themselves.
Part 4
The bone in the head is liable to be wounded in the following modes, and there
are many varieties in each of these modes of fracture: When a wounded
bone breaks, in the bone comprehending the fissure, contusion necessarily
takes place where the bone is broken; for an instrument that breaks
the bone occasions a contusion thereof more or less, both at the fracture
and in the parts of the bone surrounding the fracture. This is the
first mode. But there are all possible varieties of fissures; for
some of them are fine, and so very fine that they cannot be discovered,
either immediately after the injury, or during the period in which
it would be of use to the patient if this could be ascertained. And
some of these fissures are thicker and wider, certain of them being
very wide. And some of them extend to a greater, and some to a smaller,
distance. And some are more straight, nay, completely straight; and
some are more curved, and that in a remarkable degree. And some are
deep, so as to extend downwards and through the whole bone; and some
are less so, and do not penetrate through the whole bone.
Part 5
But a bone may be contused, and yet remain in its natural condition
without any fracture in it; this is the second mode.
