While bullet lesions of the cauda equina might be of frequent occurrence in time of war, they are unusually rare in time of peace. Thus Braun1 saw but one case in twenty-five years in one of the large Berlin hospitals, and Chipault2 says that both vertebral and spinal cord gunshot lesions are very rare, not only in every day practice, but even in time of war.
The literature, therefore, on gunshot wounds of the cauda equina, to be reported below, is very scarce indeed. Serious as these lesions have been in the majority of cases, their prognosis has been and is much more favorable than similar spinal cord lesions, notwithstanding the length of time in which the bullet might be lodged within the cauda.
In the present case, it remained there for six years, when it was finally removed with remarkable improvement in the subjective and objective conditions