[Terminal ballistics. 3]

Abstract

This brief chapter, focusing essentially on a single topic, has been written in homage to Emile Theodor Kocker, a masterful exponent of the art of surgery and founder of the culture of terminal ballistics. For most of the literature we are indebted to Fackler and Dougherty, who, with the particular grasp, and fair of historians, act as guides on a trial which is only apparently retrograde, but which actually bears eloquent witness to the fact that even in the most physically tangible of arts, namely the art of surgery, inspired curiosity may help us to go well beyond the limits of our day and age. This chapter is also dedicated to the memory of another great surgeon, Vittorio Pettinari, who for one of the authors was an incomparable mentor and past-master of such curiosity.