Liver, showing gunshot wound
GC.7755
Liver, Segment of a, between parallel sections 55mm. apart, with the cystic duct and a small portion of the gall-bladder attached, showing a gunshot wound.
From a soldier wounded in France, 6th October 1915. The wound of entrance (shrapnel?) was in the right eighth intercostal space in the posterior axillary line and there was no wound of exit. The inferior portion of the right chest was dull on percussion and the breath sounds were absent. Fluid aspirated from the right pleural cavity on the sixth day gave a growth of streptococcus. No missile was observed on radiography either in the liver or the lung. Death occurred on the sixteenth day. On post mortem examination there was fracture of the right tenth rib and bloody serum with coagula in the right pleural cavity. The diaphragm and the subjacent right lobe of the liver were perforated. There was no blood in the abdominal cavity. The missile was not discovered at the autopsy.
The track of the missile in transverse section shows an irregular ragged perforation passing obliquely through this portion of the liver, the parenchyma in the neighbourhood of the track being contused and necrotic.