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* warning: dunna click on the cuts if you are at all sensitive to seeing war injuries! these are not (in my estimation) overly gross, but i'm cutting them anyway (just in case), so use your own judgment.
i'm reading Kuz's other book, which is a substantial hunk of paper. it's half pictures, of course, but the text of the case histories is also fascinating (and sad! read the story, this morning of a very young man who lost both his arms, was living on the street begging, and was found dead a few years later). not all the case studies have sad endings, but a lot of them do.
anyway, trolling through the book i came across some important finds. discovered a head wound exactly like my andersonville one with a case history that matches Sarge's so completely that it's almost spooky (oh who am i kidding, it creeped me out momentarily). the book is chock-full of head wounds from which people recovered amazingly. gunshots to the face (horror!), sabre wounds, and blasts passing through the scalp and even penetrating the skull.
( two pictures of head wounds below this cut. )
i am not posting the ones of people who are missing their faces, though i did learn something fascinating that i feel like i should have known, but didn't make the connection until now:
my main character is a dentist. not a whiskey-dentist, but a full-fledged D.D.S. i've been trying to find a sensible place for him in my orthopedic asylum and it didn't occur to me until looking at numerous pictures of faceless men undergoing reconstructive surgery (primitive as it was then) and wearing facial prosthetics, that this is the work of an oral surgeon. a regular surgeon (like Bease) could try to reconstruct a jaw or create a nose or two, but why not leave that work to the dentist? it's not like Bease doesn't have other things to do.
can i get a "duh" here?
problem so easily solved as to be ridiculous. it means some adjustments to the arc of the storyline, but the possibilities are fun (if people with no faces can be considered "fun") and i'm looking forward to building from here.
two other things as they relate to After Shiloh which is what i am working on at the moment:
( first is a picture of a rather nasty wound of the pelvis and thigh. )
unfortunately there's no case history on this one, but i don't think this fellow survived (you never know though, another image showed the scars of a man who was shot 19 times and lived to recover his full health).
i'm very curious about the dressing on this one, but it's impossible to know what we're looking at here. i mostly saved the image because of the disposition of the wound and the manner in which the patient is propped, etc.
lastly, a picture that needs not be cut, a man who took a bullet through one elbow that then passed through his opposite wrist. it took two years for the wound in his elbow to close and he lost prehensile strength in both hands. with these splints he was able to write, etc.
elmer a. snow, 3rd cavalry, 22 years old
i'm kinda sickened from looking at these pictures all morning (the ones i've posted here are by no means the worst of the lot ~ not even close). i can't imagine the suffering some of these men endured. case after case talks about how many miles and how many hours after being wounded they were treated, how many subsequent operations it took to get them on their feet (if they had feet). the gallery of broken bones alone is testament to horrific destructive power of the weapons in this era. ah me.
one thing all of these men have in common is how wasted their flesh is. most of them are painfully thin-looking. even the fellow above was photographed in 1879, years after he had been shot and he looks like a stick. most of the men with leg injuries can't seem to stand without support and their legs are so scrawny you can scarcely imagine how they stand at all.
couple of years ago for NaNo, i wrote the first asylum story (from whence the now infamous line: "Geert understands" comes from (so here's the official record of its origin,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
babalueye). it's a silly story (about a devil incarnate, a man with a paralyzing spine injury, a puppet show, and a tapeworm). i'm convinced the story will work if actually written in a way that doesn't make you fall down laughing at how bad it is. but, barring the dreadful writing, it was a nice chance to explore some of the characters (Sally Salvador and Linwood Brown emerged as bright stars in this book ~ pretty good, especially for Brown, who's in a coma for the whole book), so i have a foundation to build on at least.
i guess it was inevitable, having doctors and dentists and priests for main characters that a hospital/asylum would be the setting that would make the most sense to bring them together.
much much better than the orphanage i had originally considered.
: D
off to take the dogs to the park, run errands, and ultimately write write write. happy saturday everyone!
i'm reading Kuz's other book, which is a substantial hunk of paper. it's half pictures, of course, but the text of the case histories is also fascinating (and sad! read the story, this morning of a very young man who lost both his arms, was living on the street begging, and was found dead a few years later). not all the case studies have sad endings, but a lot of them do.
anyway, trolling through the book i came across some important finds. discovered a head wound exactly like my andersonville one with a case history that matches Sarge's so completely that it's almost spooky (oh who am i kidding, it creeped me out momentarily). the book is chock-full of head wounds from which people recovered amazingly. gunshots to the face (horror!), sabre wounds, and blasts passing through the scalp and even penetrating the skull.
( two pictures of head wounds below this cut. )
i am not posting the ones of people who are missing their faces, though i did learn something fascinating that i feel like i should have known, but didn't make the connection until now:
my main character is a dentist. not a whiskey-dentist, but a full-fledged D.D.S. i've been trying to find a sensible place for him in my orthopedic asylum and it didn't occur to me until looking at numerous pictures of faceless men undergoing reconstructive surgery (primitive as it was then) and wearing facial prosthetics, that this is the work of an oral surgeon. a regular surgeon (like Bease) could try to reconstruct a jaw or create a nose or two, but why not leave that work to the dentist? it's not like Bease doesn't have other things to do.
can i get a "duh" here?
problem so easily solved as to be ridiculous. it means some adjustments to the arc of the storyline, but the possibilities are fun (if people with no faces can be considered "fun") and i'm looking forward to building from here.
two other things as they relate to After Shiloh which is what i am working on at the moment:
( first is a picture of a rather nasty wound of the pelvis and thigh. )
unfortunately there's no case history on this one, but i don't think this fellow survived (you never know though, another image showed the scars of a man who was shot 19 times and lived to recover his full health).
i'm very curious about the dressing on this one, but it's impossible to know what we're looking at here. i mostly saved the image because of the disposition of the wound and the manner in which the patient is propped, etc.
lastly, a picture that needs not be cut, a man who took a bullet through one elbow that then passed through his opposite wrist. it took two years for the wound in his elbow to close and he lost prehensile strength in both hands. with these splints he was able to write, etc.
elmer a. snow, 3rd cavalry, 22 years old
i'm kinda sickened from looking at these pictures all morning (the ones i've posted here are by no means the worst of the lot ~ not even close). i can't imagine the suffering some of these men endured. case after case talks about how many miles and how many hours after being wounded they were treated, how many subsequent operations it took to get them on their feet (if they had feet). the gallery of broken bones alone is testament to horrific destructive power of the weapons in this era. ah me.
one thing all of these men have in common is how wasted their flesh is. most of them are painfully thin-looking. even the fellow above was photographed in 1879, years after he had been shot and he looks like a stick. most of the men with leg injuries can't seem to stand without support and their legs are so scrawny you can scarcely imagine how they stand at all.
couple of years ago for NaNo, i wrote the first asylum story (from whence the now infamous line: "Geert understands" comes from (so here's the official record of its origin,
babalueye). it's a silly story (about a devil incarnate, a man with a paralyzing spine injury, a puppet show, and a tapeworm). i'm convinced the story will work if actually written in a way that doesn't make you fall down laughing at how bad it is. but, barring the dreadful writing, it was a nice chance to explore some of the characters (Sally Salvador and Linwood Brown emerged as bright stars in this book ~ pretty good, especially for Brown, who's in a coma for the whole book), so i have a foundation to build on at least.i guess it was inevitable, having doctors and dentists and priests for main characters that a hospital/asylum would be the setting that would make the most sense to bring them together.
much much better than the orphanage i had originally considered.
: D
off to take the dogs to the park, run errands, and ultimately write write write. happy saturday everyone!
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