The blade was black and corroded, and had evidently passed between the sutures during boyhood as there was no depression or displacement of the cranial bones.

The weapon had broken off just on a level with the skull, and had remained in situ until the time of death without causing any indicative symptoms.

Slee does not state the man's age, but remarks that he was a married man and a father at the time of his death, and had enjoyed the best of health up to the time he was shot in the abdomen.

Callaghan, quoted in Erichsen's "Surgery," remarks that he knew of an officer who lived seven years with a portion of a gun-breech weighing three ounces lodged in his brain.
Lawson mentions the impaction of a portion of a breech of a gun in the forehead of a man for twelve years, with subsequent removal and recovery.

Waldon speaks of a similar case in which a fragment of the breech weighing three ounces penetrated the cranium, and was lodged in the brain for two months previous to the death of the patient.
Huppert tells of the lodgment of a slate-pencil three inches long in the brain during lifetime, death ultimately being caused by a slight head-injury.