During the Siege of Paris wounds were of exceptional gravity. Older surgeons, who had had much experience in wars, admitted that the wounds during the siege were of unexampled and unprecedented fatality. In cases I had observed a violent contusion of the marrow extending very high up; it was obvious to me that this marked injury was of immediate origin. At the same time, the bones themselves presented the most serious lesions; there was splitting and splintering of the bone, extending as high up as the great trochanter, for instance, in cases of fractured femur. Amputation was, at the beginning, universally employed. The results were disastrous, the mortality was absolute and general. Most strenuous exertions were made by Paris surgeons, and were much insisted on by myself, in the direction of conservative surgery in wounds which engaged the bones, and particularly the femur.