Marshall & Sanow: What to do with a book I wish I had not bought?

[Dr. Courtney]

For comparison I have attached a small sample of Dr. Fackler's work below. Draw your own conclusions.

It should be re-iterated that the father of the ballistic pressure wave theory (Col. Frank T. Chamberlin) has credentials that are comparable with Dr. Fackler's. In addition, there has been considerable support for the pressure wave theory on the pages of J Trauma, the same journal from which Doc TH references so much of Dr. Fackler's work:

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Kjellström BT, Lycke E, and Seeman T: Pressure Waves by High Energy Missile Impair Respiration of Cultured Dorsal Root Ganglion Cells. The Journal of Trauma 30(4):484-488; 1990.

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Lycke E: Pressure Wave Injuries to Rat Dorsal Cell Ganglion Root Cells in Culture Caused by High Energy Missiles, The Journal of Trauma. 29(1):10-18; 1989.

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Seeman T: Peripheral High-Energy Missile Hits Cause Pressure Changes and Damage to the Nervous System: Experimental Studies on Pigs. The Journal of Trauma. 27(7):782-789; 1987.

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Seeman T: Central and Peripheral Nervous Damage Following High-Energy Missile Wounds in the Thigh. The Journal of Trauma. 28(1 Supplement):S197-S203; January 1988.

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Seeman T: Pressure Wave Injuries to the Nervous System Caused by High Energy Missile Extremity Impact: Part I. Local and Distant Effects on the Peripheral Nervous System. A Light and Electron Microscopic Study on Pigs. The Journal of Trauma. 30(3):281-294; 1990.

Suneson A, Hansson HA, Seeman T: Pressure Wave Injuries to the Nervous System Caused by High Energy Missile extremity Impact: Part II. Distant Effects on the Central Nervous System. A Light and Electron Microscopic Study on Pigs. The Journal of Trauma. 30(3):295-306; 1990.

Wang Q, Wang Z, Zhu P, Jiang J: Alterations of the Myelin Basic Protein and Ultrastructure in the Limbic System and the Early Stage of Trauma-Related Stress Disorder in Dogs. The Journal of Trauma. 56(3):604-610; 2004.

Ordog GJ, Balasubramanian S, Wasserberger J, et al.: Extremity Gunshot Wounds. I. Identification and Treatment of Patients at High Risk of Vascular Injury. The Journal of Trauma 36:358-368; 1994.

Ming L, Yu-Yuan M, Ring-Xiang F, Tian-Shun F: The characteristics of pressure waves generated in the soft target by impact and its contribution to indirect bone fractures. The Journal of Trauma 28(1) Supplement: S104-S109; 1988.

I really prefer to consider scientific questions matters for repeatable experiments rather than expert opinion, but since the subject has been brought up regarding credentials and opinions, it might be useful to summarize the positions of various authors of papers regarding the pressure wave mechanism:

Remote Pressure wave mechanism exists:

FT Chamberlin, S Tikka, A Cederberg, P Rokkanen, WO Puckett, H Grundfest, WD McElroy, JH McMillen, A Suneson, HA Hansson, T Seeman, E Lycke, Q Wang, Z Wang, P Zhu, J Jiang, AM Göransson, DH Ingvar, F Kutyna, GJ Ordog, S Balasubramanian, J Wasserberger, L Ming, M Yu-Yuan, F Ring-Xiang, F Tian-Shun, M Courtney, A Courtney

Remote pressure wave mechanism does not exist or is not significant:

ML Fackler, D MacPherson, P Urey

On the fence/not clearly committed to a position:

G Roberts, S Dodson, CE Peters

I may have left some people out, and would be happy to consider additions or reassignments if someone can provide relevant references.

But the point is that it is an incomplete picture to present scholarly disagreement regarding the pressure wave theory as Fackler vs. Courtney and compare our credentials in isolation. A lot of scientists with a wide range of credentials have published assertions regarding the role of a ballistic pressure wave in wounding and incapacitation.

Michael Courtney

 

[Socrates]

HMMMM. Did those degrees come from Harvard day, or night school????

Dr. S

 

[Dr. Courtney]

HMMMM. Did those degrees come from Harvard day, or night school????

Amy Courtney attended Harvard as a full-time student from August 1989 to June 1994. From 1989 until 1992 she was fully supported by a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship. After that time, she was fully supported by a research assistantship until she completed her PhD in the joint Harvard/MIT program. This program includes substantial medical training at Harvard Medical School and is widely recognized as one of the best available in the medical sciences.

After graduating from Harvard her work was recognized nationally and internationally and she received both a Whitaker Foundation grant and the International Society for Biomechanics Most Promising Young Scientist Award.

Questioning Dr. Amy Courtney's credentials is really barking up the wrong tree. Amy Courtney went on to work at the Cleveland Clinic and serve on the faculty of the Ohio State University. More recently, she has accepted a faculty position at the most selective institution in the country. She is certainly highly qualified to conduct research in the mechanical reactions of tissue in response to ballistic impact.

Michael Courtney

 

[Odd Job]

Doc TH said:

There are so many irreproducible variables, subject to faulty post-incident memory, that attempts to collate and reconstruct anything like "one shot stop" data are a joke.
My time in big city emergency rooms has led me to believe that shot placement is the deciding factor. So I side with the NYPD.

I tend to agree with most of that. Some of these variables just aren't appreciated by the lay person.

 

[fastbolt]

Keep the book. You already own it.

It's an interesting bit of history in its own right. The authors' desire to examine this subject, in this manner, combined with their professional experience, makes for interesting reading and some different perspectives. The methodology issues which later arose don't necessarily invalidate the potential usefulness of some of the data. Historical insight is hardly a wasted effort.

Allow the Courtney's to continue to pursue their questions without rancor or derision. Asking new questions, or revisiting previous questions from new perspectives, is how we learn.

How can we really know what we don't know unless we, at some level, continually question and re-evaluate what we think we know? The ability of human consciousness to correlate data and continually reconsider information, and use the results to increase our stored knowledge, has got to be one of the marvels of the universe.

Albeit the last 30-odd years of modern history is an incredibly brief blink of an eye, considered within the known span of human history, there has been some interesting developments in many areas in that brief time. The continued technological development of defensive ammunition, its observed wounding effects upon the human body and our understanding of everything involved, is likely far from complete.

Arguing about the credentials of the persons(s) who decided to point a telescope at something which would reveal hitherto unsuspected vistas of knowledge, rather than be willing to just look through the telescope, is a mistake already made in our past, you know ...

Even 'bows and arrows' have benefited from continuing scientific and technological (design and manufacturing) advancements.

 

[Socrates]

Regardless of pedigree, none of the research presented has paved new ground, or for that matter added much to what is already common knowledge. Wounding effects occurs effectively with more then one set of factors. There is more then one way to obtain the desired goal. However, much of your theory is moot, as I have explained prior. As long as the ammunition companies continue to produce their products within a narrow range of ballistics, and design their bullets in a similar manner, this entire point is dancing on the head of a pin.

It is nice to know my friend at Lockheed was 30-40 years ahead of his time, figuring this out a LONG time ago, designing projectiles. I find it really odd that no reference is made to the effects, and design of military projectiles. Lockheed was designing such stuff, documenting both design and effect, with the worlds fastest camera, in the late 70-80's. The photographs of the sound waves created as the bullet broke the sound barrier alone would provide substantial support for your theory. Also, the difficulty of designing objects to pierce the sound barrier, and, how certain objects act, for instance a narrow arrow type vs. a blunt object, and how the wave is affected would also provide solid support for your theory. Perhaps, with a bit of a budget, the effect in liquid might be similar to what happens in air when a bullet goes supersonic?

I remember seeing pictures of a 20mm projectile penetrating armor, at very high speed. The armor plate
takes on the appearance of a liquid, as waves are created away from the point of impact.

I suspect the defense industry has done the real research on this subject, already, and, it's buried in someone's archives with documentation and detail that exceeds shooting deer with saboted hand gun bullets.

Dr. S

 

[Tim Burke]

However, much of your theory is moot, as I have explained prior. As long as the ammunition companies continue to produce their products within a narrow range of ballistics, and design their bullets in a similar manner, this entire point is dancing on the head of a pin.

This assumes that:

• There is no point in knowledge for its own sake.
• Ammo companies won't change their product line.

I don't want to debate the first one, as it is more philosophical than factual. I'll just point out that it isn't a self evident truth.
As for the second, it is clear that ammunition manufacturers will change their product line. The reason they are almost all designed within the current narrow range of ballistics is because the currently accepted theory suggests that this is the most effective design.

 

[hdm25]

The NYCPD performed a multi-year study of police shootings and concluded that the one single predictor of the ability to stop a gunfight was not the caliber of the firearm but shot placement.

This was also the conclusion reached by Marshall & Sanow. I believe they spell it out quite clearly in the first or second paragraph of their first book.

It always amazes me the extent to which people will go to argue M&S but still end up with the same conclusions.

 

[JR47]

I wonder how much less controversial the Drs. Courtney's paper would have been had they not had the temerity to point out that M&S, and the infamous Strasbourg Tests, actually make a scientific contribution?

The IWBA is no more, mostly because it's hard to maintain an organization that continually eats it's own. The dogmatic rigidity that it eventually formed destroyed it.

Doc TH, as you find it so necessary to declare, and debate, the Courtney's credentials, what are yours?

HMMMM. Did those degrees come from Harvard day, or night school????

Dr. S

Dr. S, as your degree has NOTHING to do with ballistics, ethics, or firearms design, much less cartridge or bullet design, want to post your credentials? Did you actually attend an accredited University, or was your degree a matter of night-school at the local junior college, then on to a real school?

Before you take umbrage, look at the quoted passage that you made, and ponder the apparent rudeness of it.

Regardless of pedigree, none of the research presented has paved new ground, or for that matter added much to what is already common knowledge. Wounding effects occurs effectively with more then one set of factors. There is more then one way to obtain the desired goal. However, much of your theory is moot, as I have explained prior. As long as the ammunition companies continue to produce their products within a narrow range of ballistics, and design their bullets in a similar manner, this entire point is dancing on the head of a pin.

Really? At what point does the identification and classification of an as yet poorly understood aspect of traumatic injury qualify as failing to pave new ground? Care to show me the "common knowledge" that pressure wave science in traumatic injury which exists? Perhaps a better understanding of this phenomena would explain why ER docs don't see such a difference presenting in various calibers? The ability to quantify the phenomena can then make accurate modeling of follow-on designs possible.

The statement that "much of your theory is moot, as I have explained prior" is factually in error. What you really mean is that anything that doesn't directly correspond to your own beliefs is useless, in your opinion.

We bandy about the names of many of the last centuries hunters, amateur ballisticians, and cartridge designers, as though they should be accompanied with solemn music. They used even earlier authors experiences, and built on them, or disproved them. Science hasn't stopped yet. Instrumentation and analytical capabilities are advancing even as this is typed. It's ludicrous to believe that everything that we need to know about wounding has been investigated. It's also ludicrous to state that ammunition companies are somehow "hiding" better designs. Just because a personal-favorite caliber fell out of the public's eye doesn't mean that anything nefarious occurred.

Personal attacks on the Courtneys should remain the province of the largely incestuous scientific community's politicians. It has no place here. It simply shows the depths to which inferior personalities will sink.:barf:

 

[Tamara]

This one has devolved far enough, I think.