appearance of these various types of mechanical injuries was not remarkable
to the medical authorities who studied them.

It was estimated that patients with lacerations at Hiroshima were less than
10,600 feet from X, whereas at Nagasaki they extended as far as 12,200
feet.

The tremendous drag of wind, even as far as 1 mile from X, must have
resulted in many injuries and deaths. Some large pieces of a prison wall,
for example, were flung 80 feet, and many have gone 30 feet high before
falling. The same fate must have befallen many persons, and the chances of
a human being surviving such treatment are probably small.



BLAST INJURIES


No estimate of the number of deaths or early symptoms due to blast pressure
can be made. The pressures developed on the ground under the explosions
were not sufficient to kill more than those people very near the center of
damage (within a few hundred feet at most). Very few cases of ruptured ear
drums were noted, and it is the general feeling of the medical authorities
that the direct blast effects were not great. Many of the Japanese
reports, which are believed to be false, describe immediate effects such as
ruptured abdomens with protruding intestines and protruding eyes, but no
such results were actually traced to the effect of air pressure alone.