Wound Research

[Philip Sibbering]

There's no announcement for John's book, I just know some of what he's working on. I don't know how soon he'll be ready to publish.

I shall keep an eye out. I'm always reading articles here, so I hope to spot it as soon as it comes out.

By the way, numerous manuals, rapier manuals in particular, mention that a thrust to the vital organs of the chest only has to be "three fingers deep" or some similar measure to cause death. George Silver also comments on thrusting and how it's possible to survive many (poorly placed) and still keep fighting, while cuts are more quickly disabling. I believe there's another recent thread here that covers this topic in more detail.

Thanks for the information, and I'll have a search for the thread.

Philip, I enclose a copy of some records I had in my files, there are enough examples to get you going. These are relatively later period but you can search much further back than this if you wish to:-

Thank you very much for this!

If you are able to read French, there is also some info in the book Croiser le fer, pp. 331-349. This is based on French coroners' reports, but from the smallsword era mainly. Some of the diagrams can be seen in the book preview.

I can not read French, I'll try putting it though online translation engine

M. Sibbering Yes, the various demonstrations that Mike Loades had done in "Weapons that Made Britain". Unfortunate that BBC doesn't distribute some of their better history programming in the US, often its quite good.

I was a very good show, with some great tests and explanations! I'm surprised you can not get hold of a copy, but after having a look around it seems it is no where to be found. Very strange.

There's also this RPGnet article that, while mostly directed at fiction writers and roleplaying GMs, still contains a huge wealth of medical information of a more general interest:

http://www.rpg.net/columns/medical/medical1.phtml

and a post from a medievalist's blog, which provides links to two highly useful texts:

http://writemedieval.livejournal.com/3551.html

BTW, the book on the forensic-archeaological exploration of Towton is titled Blood Red Roses, just in case anybody is interested in checking it out.

Thanks for the links and the book - this one?

- Well it seems I have a bit of reading to do!

Thank all.

Philip

[s_taillebois]

Yes that's the book. Much of it deals with the archeological site, and the medical assessment of the wounds that could be determined from the skeletal remains. Can be fairly specialized insofar as the jargon.

Does seem they've changed the cover design..,.

[Benjamin Abbott]

Terry, I'm a little amazed by those sword wounds from George Silver's time. I've read 14th-century coroner's rolls. Relatively few sword wounds appear there, and I don't believe any matched the severity. I guess many men in late 16th century and early 17th century believed in powerful strokes to the head, just as Swetnam claimed. In other eras and places, cuts seem to have been more survivable. For example, this text gives accounts of sword wounds from Burma.

By looking over what you've posted and the 14th-century records, it appears to me any head blow deeper than three inches caused immediate incapacitation and swift death, but shallower cuts tended to leave the victim lingering for days.

[terry brown]

Terry, I'm a little amazed by those sword wounds from George Silver's time. I've read 14th-century coroner's rolls. Relatively few sword wounds appear there, and I don't believe any matched the severity. I guess many men in late 16th century and early 17th century believed in powerful strokes to the head, just as Swetnam claimed. In other eras and places, cuts seem to have been more survivable.
By looking over what you've posted and the 14th-century records, it appears to me any head blow deeper than three inches caused immediate incapacitation and swift death, but swallower cuts tended to leave the victim lingering for days.

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Hi Benjamin,

That's an interesting observation, certainly worthy of further investigation.
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Cheers,
Terry

[Matt Bryant]

Great list of injuries Terry! Many thanks for posting that. I thought it was interesting how they listed the values of the weapons used. It is understandable to list to value of the stolen items, but I wonder what the logic is in always listing the weapons too.

[terry brown]

Great list of injuries Terry! Many thanks for posting that. I thought it was interesting how they listed the values of the weapons used. It is understandable to list to value of the stolen items, but I wonder what the logic is in always listing the weapons too.

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Glad you found it of interest.
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As regards listing the value of the weapons, this was to do with them being confiscated by the court and sold. In theory the money so raised was then donated to good causes. This practise was known as 'Deodands', from Latin, 'deo dandum' meaning, to be given to God.
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Hope this helps.
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Best wishes,
Terry

[Matt Bryant]

Yet more good info! Thanks for explaining that. It seems like a cool custom. Kind of like how you can go to a repo auction nowadays.

Man I wish repo auctions still had swords.

Great list of injuries Terry! Many thanks for posting that. I thought it was interesting how they listed the values of the weapons used. It is understandable to list to value of the stolen items, but I wonder what the logic is in always listing the weapons too.

>
Glad you found it of interest.
>
As regards listing the value of the weapons, this was to do with them being confiscated by the court and sold. In theory the money so raised was then donated to good causes. This practise was known as 'Deodands', from Latin, 'deo dandum' meaning, to be given to God.
>
Hope this helps.
>
Best wishes,
Terry

[s_taillebois]

"Terry, I'm a little amazed by those sword wounds from George Silver's time. I've read 14th-century coroner's rolls. Relatively few sword wounds appear there, and I don't believe any matched the severity. I guess many men in late 16th century and early 17th century believed in powerful strokes to the head, just as Swetnam claimed. In other eras and places, cuts seem to have been more survivable. For example, this text gives accounts of sword wounds from Burma. "

One possibility is that in 14th century Europe (especially in Britain) the concept of sanctuary stones was still very much in place. So a certain percentage of town troublemakers and the like may have died out in the fields (or been murdered) during their attempts to reach some boundary stone. And so may not have been deemed worthy of including in the county, town etc records.

[Chris Ouellet]

I've been away from this forum for some months due to injury and a new job getting in the way so I might resurrect dead threads of interest.
The injury in question that has kept me from sword fighting (and most everything else fun and interesting) was a torn ACL. It happened at a martial arts tournament, the Arnold 2009 bay in May, and was as a result of a knee-on-knee impact in kendo, so blunt force trauma, and not a cut delivered from a sword. So it is tangentially related to the topic as I can describe exactly how it felt to be in a fighting situation and acquire a severed tendon.
Precisely what happened is still not clear, my student charged me and maybe slipped or tripped on a cord and his right knee projected outwards and hit the lower *inside* portion of my left knee. NEVER get hit on the inside of the knee, defend your legs people. He really wanted the gold medal and so we were sparring very hard, I don't blame him, accidents happen. We both hit the ground, I rubbed the impact site for ~a min and got right back up to fight again. I got into stance and as soon as I tried to attack my left leg buckled under the force I wanted it to deliver. The pain was amazing and I had to lunge for the nearest chair realising only then the severity of the injury. I have a very high pain tolerance with no exaggeration, that type of pain makes you stop, outright, it saps everything.
In the minute after the immediate injury, were it life-and-death, I have no doubt I would continue to fight, we could have wrestled on the ground, drawn daggers and stabbed each other with little difficulty. Adrenaline and mental focus are very impressive things. However continuing to fight, either by standing or say SCA standards of being on your knees is ridiculous. Any motion involving the twisting of the knee with force, perhaps even during wrestling, results in incapacitation.

My opinion and conclusion from this experience is that an opponent with a tendon injury remains dangerous, for a very short time until the effects of that injury are readily felt, at which point it's game-over.

I've had arthroscopic surgery on the knee and it has been a great success. I still have ~7 months of recovery before I can once again train and spar like I used to but coupled with physiotherapy I'm well on my way. A very interesting note from the surgery: my knee and leg were punctured in 4 different areas for the cameras and instruments to do their work. Immediately after the surgery when the anaesthetic wore off the doctor asked me to raise my leg and I had no difficulty in doing it (he was surprised, few can do this apparently). The limb remained functional until the swelling set in - 20 minutes later my quadriceps were no longer capable of lifting the leg at all. The pain in that area overrides any signals the brain sends, it's just physically impossible to move. When I read the anecdotal evidence of duels where the combatants are stabbed multiple times continue to fight, I can believe it. It certainly requires that you be lucky enough to be stabbed with surgical precision, but it's not guaranteed to be immediately crippling. I had no pain killers incidentally, they make me feel ill.

[Philip Sibbering]

Thanks for sharing your experience Chris Ouellet, I was very interested to read about it (that sounds a bit morbid!). I hope you get better and are fighting fit soon!

Your experience seems to tie into my findings, that humans do not always know how badly they are injured. A serious injury out of the stress of combat seems to debilitate very quickly through pain; without a present danger the body wants to stop as fast as possible. In contrast the body seems to do the opposite while in a stressful situation and a person is only taken down when physically taken down (i.e. a knee can no longer mechanically support the body), a wound is such as to be instantly disabling, in these instances pain no longer seems to be debilitating for a sort while. Long enough to grab and wrestle.

It seems to me that this applies to wounds other than blunt force and that while stab wounds are very dangerous, and will kill, but unless placed correctly they will not disable straight away.

As far as I can tell there are many wounds that are lethal but until the wounded combatant is overcome by the wounds they are still dangerous. It seems to be 'all or nothing'.

All these bits and pieces of information seem to culminate in the concept that the targets to go for when fighting are ones that disable fast (as a priority) and if the disabling blow also happens to kill all the better (i.e. cutting off the head disables and kills in one stroke, taking a leg (shield bind/ hamstring/ no mail armour) disables but does not kill instantly; but the follow up blow will)

It also ties into other martial arts like unarmed grapples; disable and control, then finish.

So a simple mantra of 'disable > kill' seems to fit the mindset of the warrior, as getting a disabling shot and following up is better than scoring a lethal hit where the wounded man is still active. This seems practical to me and perhaps reflects a deep survival instinct that it is less about killing your opponent and more about ensuring your survival (though dreams of glory could mess with this!)

How does this sound to you?

Philip

[Chris Ouellet]

I absolutely agree with you Philip. It will sadly still be many months until I'm in fighting shape, well not that sad I'm very happy for modern medicine and the fact that I will be fighting again!
Disabling wounds end combat, a blow that is lethal but not disabling needs to be placed with the correct timing, that is to say the ability to disengage or otherwise foil counter-attack.
I've always trained my students recognise when a blow is too "light" and to avoid a "double kill" when sparing.
Interestingly enough when you train with this mentality and face off against someone who has trained with different goals in mind, say Olympic fencing where only a touch is needed, the person using broad powerful technique is actually not at a significant disadvantage. The trepidation of walking into a wide-arc powerful slash is very natural, even in the simulated situation which is sparring, where truthfully the only risk is bruising and on top of that people are exercising good control.
My own analysis of this is that human reaction time is a fixed number, it varies from individual to individual by a small amount but it floats around 0.15 of a second. A really well trained swordsman who has done a couple hundred thousand sword swings can readily approach that limit with powerful shoulder cuts.
In real battle, I know I would take whatever I can get, be it a leg, arm, wrist or the head. I would have a preference though for the primary sword arm over the secondary because of the risk of counter-attack, both are lethal but one is utterly disabling.

[Matt Bryant]

Thanks for the anecdote, Chris. This really goes to show that you should still guard yourself even after making a hit (to say nothing for hitting them again).

[Benjamin Parker]

Thanks for the anecdote, Chris. This really goes to show that you should still guard yourself even after making a hit (to say nothing for hitting them again).

Indeed, a wounded opponent doesn't nessesarily equal one who can't kill you

[Chris Ouellet]

Thanks guys, it's really the damn hard way to learn about wounds, stay safe, injury sucks.