The patient was bathing the wound with a decoction of the leaves of the red-gum tree.

Notwithstanding that the spear measured seven inches, and the interference of treatment, the abdominal wound closed on the sixth day, and recovery was uninterrupted.

Gilkrist mentions an instance in which a ramrod was fired into a soldier's abdomen, its extremity lodging in the spinal column, without causing the slightest evidence of wounds of the intestines or viscera.

A minute postmortem examination was held some time afterward, the soldier having died by drowning, but the results were absolutely negative as regards any injury done by the passage of the ramrod.
Humphreys says that a boy of eleven, while "playing soldier" with another boy, accidentally fell on a rick-stake.

The stake was slightly curved at its upper part, being 43 inches long and three inches in circumference, and sharp-pointed at its extremity.