The man was greatly prostrated, but after eleven months of convalescence he recovered.

In the brutal capture of Fort Griswold, Connecticut, in 1781, in which the brave occupants were massacred by the British, Lieutenant Avery had an eye shot out, his skull fractured, the brain-substance scattering on the ground, was stabbed in the side, and left for dead; yet he recovered and lived to narrate the horrors of the day forty years after.
A French invalid-artillery soldier, from his injuries and a peculiar mask he used to hide them, was known as "L'homme a la tete de cire." The Lancet gives his history briefly as follows: During the Franco-Prussian War, he was horribly wounded by the bursting of a Prussian shell.

His whole face, including his two eyes, were literally blown away, some scanty remnants of the osseous and muscular systems, and the skull covered with hair being left.

His wounds healed, giving him such a hideous and ghastly appearance that he was virtually ostracized from the sight of his fellows.

For his relief a dentist by the name of Delalain constructed a mask which included a false palate and a set of false teeth.