Death from wounds is due more frequently to infection than to the actual injury represented by the wounds.

Much depends upon the character of the wound.

Infection of clean wounds which are made by a sharp cutting instrument and from which there is abundant haemorrhage with sealing of the edges of the wound by clotted blood, rarely happens.

Typical wounds of this sort are often made in shaving, and infection of such wounds is extraordinarily rare.

If, with the wound, pathogenic organisms are placed in the tissue, or foreign substances such as bits of clothing are carried in with a bullet, for example, or if the instrument causing the wound be of such a character as to produce extensive lacerations of tissue, infection is more apt to occur.