Air Does Not Kill

1895

The old belief that projectiles sometimes kill men in battle without hitting them must be abandoned in view of recent scientific experiments. It was formerly supposed that the air compressed and driven before the projectile and technically called "the wind of the shot" was capable of striking a fatal blow, and even army surgeons have assented to this theory.

But experiments have shown that the air driven by a projectile, while capable of being instantaneously photographed in the form of a wave, does not possess sufficient energy to produce any destructive effect.

Another theory which recent investigations have overturned is that the explosive effect sometimes exhibited by bullets is due to compressed air driven into the wound.

Experiment shows that the appearance of explosion arises from the nature of the substance penetrated by the bullet. If this substance is plastic or watery, the impulse of the projectile is distributed laterally in all directions among its particles, and they are driven asunder.

Such an effect has been noticed in battle when bullets have entered the brain, and accusations of using explosive projectiles, contrary to the comity of nations, have been based upon them. By firing bullets into wet dough every indication of an explosion has been produced, although the same bullets, fired with identical velocity, into solid substances, like bone, made only round, clean out holes. — Youth's Companion.