I hope not a leaden question...
December 9, 2011 12:17 PM   Subscribe

Did soldiers (1800's) shot with lead musket balls suffer from any sort of lead poisoning?

Writing a story set in 1807. Man shot with musket. Ball stuck inside shoulder. Did this cause any sort of immediate lead poisoning, or is that more of a long term thing? Would there be other immediate effects? How would he be after 24 hours?
posted by ecorrocio to Science & Nature (8 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Infection would set in long before any possible lead poisoning.
posted by lawhound at 12:19 PM on December 9, 2011


From here:

Bullets lodged in the body rarely cause significant levels of lead poisoning,[59][60] but bullets lodged in the joints are the exception, as they deteriorate and release lead into the body over time.[61]
posted by griphus at 12:24 PM on December 9, 2011


Response by poster: Makes sense. Given the conditions, I'd bet infection was quick to set in.
posted by ecorrocio at 12:38 PM on December 9, 2011


Best answer: Oh yay! I actually know something about this! Technically more about Civil War era wounds, but lead is lead, right? Can you have your dude get shot with a rifle? Because that would make it way cooler.

The thing with lead bullets is that they're really soft, because lead is really soft. A lead bullet that has been fired from a gun will smoosh out on impact with whatever it hits, due to aforementioned bullet softness. That means that the wound you get from a lead bullet is going to be huge and nasty, and the bullet would almost certainly get stuck inside the person (i.e. no through-and-through shots). The ball would no longer be a ball, though, which would make removal very difficult.

The reason a rifle would be cooler than a musket is because rifles have, well, rifling. Instead of just getting fired out of a barrel, it would also be spinning, so when the lead bullet hits you it'll smoosh out and continue to spin, totally ripping apart whatever it hit. There's no coming back from that. When you got hit with a bullet like that, you were either dead or next in line for an amputation. (I believe something like 250,000 soldiers came out of the Civil War with amputated limbs, but it's been a while since I read about it. The number may actually be much higher than that.)

Anyway, lawhound is right--infection was a much, much bigger issue than lead poisoning. So was the risk of bleeding out. If you got hit with a lead bullet, lead poisoning would almost be a blessing, because it would mean that you didn't immediately die from the wound. Speaking of which, most of the time the immediate effect of getting hit with the lead bullet would have been that the guy would bleed out and die. If he made it to 24 hours, infection would be his biggest concern. A few days into it, if he still wasn't dead, a doctor would be watching him for signs of gangrene. Once gangrene set in, it was amputation time.

If you'd like to go in a more gruesome direction with your story, an amputation would be about right. My history of arms knowledge is pretty lacking, but you might be interested in looking up info about rifled muskets, 19th c. rifles, and minnie balls. Before the Civil War, there really weren't many standards on amputations, so your guy could have some pretty crazy post-op stuff going on. (Surgeons got really practiced at amputations during the Civil War and started putting a lot more thought into how and where to cut so a prosthetic limb would be more effective. It's pretty interesting stuff. Also during the Civil War, they just started chopping off limbs as soon as you were hit instead of waiting for gangrene to set in. I believe there's a scene to this effect at the beginning of Dances with Wolves.)
posted by phunniemee at 12:54 PM on December 9, 2011 [6 favorites]


Response by poster: I need a guy just wounded... no amputation, so the musket is about right. Big wound works.

This is why I love AskMeFi! Thanks phunniemee - and others! Great stuff.
posted by ecorrocio at 1:05 PM on December 9, 2011


I think you need the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion (links to online version of the work is at the bottom of the wiki article). Not just to read, but there are some fantastic colour paintings of the wounds they're talking about. As phunniemee points out, there was a steep learning curve during the war, and that book was written as a retrospective so it may well give more of a picture of the later developments than the earlier.
posted by Coobeastie at 1:21 PM on December 9, 2011


I can't know if the shooting is critical to your story, but the low-injury, no-exit-wound might better be achieved by a musketball or bullet after a ricochet, which would reduce the energy of the projectile enough to give you plenty of leeway in terms of the effects of the injury, in terms of writer's license. Alternately, it could'be been slowed down by penetrating something--a substantial board (such as the siding of a contemporary house), a pail of water, another person or living creature (although this would substantially increase the infection risk in reality).
posted by Sunburnt at 3:35 PM on December 9, 2011


Question: What are the lead poisoning risks of a lead pellet, bullet or shot lodged in the body?

A good historical example (& from the same time period!) of probable lead poisoning from a lodged bullet is provided by Andrew Jackson. Here's JAMA's article, Andrew Jackson's Exposure to Mercury and Lead (here's the pdf version).

The first was the result of a duel with Dickenson in 1806, and the second a gunfight/duel with the Benton brothers in 1813 (general summaries) (Summary of Benton brothers gunfight/duel)

Worth noting in these examples: (1) shots were from pistols at very close range, not muskets; (2) high frequency of pistols mis-firing; (3) in both cases, Jackson bled, a lot, nearly died, and took about a month to recover from being bedridden. (4) the pain lasted throughout his life.
posted by Tuesday After Lunch at 7:38 AM on December 10, 2011


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