A wound may be defined to be a recent solution of continuity in the soft parts, suddenly occasioned by external causes, and attended at first with more or less hemorrhage.

Wounds in general are subject to considerable variety in their nature, degree of danger, facility of cure, and the consequences which are to be apprehended from them. Some wounds are quite trivial, not extending more deeply than the skin and cellular tissue, while others are very serious and dangerous, penetrating the muscles, tendons, large bloodvessels, nerves, and viscera; while there are wounds which are not confined to the soft parts, but injure even the bones.

Again, many wounds of the head, chest and abdomen injure the organs contained in those cavities. In short, the varieties and the degree of danger attending wounds in general depend very much upon some of the following facts: namely, the extent of the injury; the kind of instrument with which it has been inflicted; the violence which the fibres of the part have sustained in addition to their division; the size and importance of the bloodvessels and nerves which happen to be injured; the nature of the wounded part, in respect to its general power of healing favourably, or not; whether the operations of the system at large, and life itself, can well be supported or not, while the functions of the wounded part are disturbed, interrupted, or suspended by the accident; the age of the animal; the condition of its constitution; and the opportunities which there may be of administering proper medical aid and assistance of every kind.

Now all wounds of considerable size or depth, not producing immediate death, are followed by more or less disturbance of the whole constitution - by a fever which, on account of its being an effect of the local injury, is sometimes called traumatic, or symptomatic, or sympathetic, in consequence of its being, as it were, in sympathy with the whole animal economy through the wounded part. It is likewise frequently named inflammatory fever, as being a constant attendant on severe inflammation.

Profusely suppurating wounds, the cure of which is retarded by any incidental circumstances, invariably bring on great debility, and a particular disturbance of the sanguiferous, secreting, digestive, nervous, and other systems.