Floyd Smith

---

May 21, 1915, there came to our compound in Diarbekir from the village of Karabash, three hours to the east, three or four wounded and the following day (May 22) over a score of wounded Armenian and Syrian women and children. (They, the villagers, told of a night attack by the Kurds three days previous and that the next morning the government had sent gendarmes who refused to allow anyone to come to Diarbekir. Some managed to get away and finally all who could walk or be carried came on the dates mentioned.)

The wounds were practically all infected and I have classified them as follows:

(a) Inside wounds (probably from swords and knives) of the scalp, face, neck, shoulders, back, extremities.

(b) Perforating bullet wounds of the extremities.

(c) Wounds made by heavy cutting instruments, probably axes.

I want to mention some special cases I saw and treated:

1. Woman with hand severed at the wrist. She died in our compound.

2. Two children about seven and nine years and one woman; attempted decapitations. Deep incised wounds of the nape of the neck (just below the skull), 5-8 inches long and of a depth equal to the thickness of the muscles of this region.

3. Woman with incised wound of the nose and both cheeks. The nose had apparently received a sword-cut about ½-1 inch from the tip. This stroke involved both cheeks too. When I first saw the case, the tip of the nose was attached but slightly out of alignment below the cut. (Patient said that when she received the wound, the end of the nose had fallen forward and she replaced it and had it bandaged.)

4. Boy of about nine years. A stroke, probably by an axe or heavy sword, had severed a section of skull in the parieto-temporal region of one side of the head. The severed piece of skull was about five inches across and although without bony attachment, it was still adherent to a flap made up of scalp tissues. The exposed dura was intact except an opening almost in the center, from which bulged a brain hernia the size of a large English walnut.

5. Syrian boy with bullet wound of the face (said to have been received three weeks before at the hands of marauding Kurds). The bullet entered the left side of the nose and made its exit on the right side of the neck about one inch below the angle of the jaw. In its course the bullet tore out a large section of the palate and fractured the lower jaw about 1½ inches from the angle. At the first dressing I removed a fragment of the jaw which was somewhat necrotic. I had no reason to doubt the statement as to the time of receiving the wound.

---