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Femur showing a gunshot fracture from a soldier wounded by a rifle bullet in the American Civil War

GC.3426

Femur showing a gunshot fracture from a soldier wounded by a rifle bullet in the American Civil War (1861-65) The preparation is the distal extremity of a right femur with the proximal portion of the tibia, showing a gunshot fracture with the missile fixed in situ. The wound was caused by a conoidal leaden rifle bullet The bullet has entered at the posterior side and lodged in the cancellous bone. A fissure crosses the lateral condyle transversely near the level of the anterior limit of the intercondylic notch. Comminuted portions of the bone beside the bullet are missing.

Nineteenth century