Fall 2011
Postcard / The Smith & Wesson Chest Plates
The bullet and the damage done
![The front of this issue’s postcard which depicts six ceramic chest plates with bullet wounds.](/issues/43/cabinet_043_postcard_1.jpg)
![The back of this issue’s postcard with text that reads: “The mass manufacture of firearms in the nineteenth century made the study of gunshot wounds an integral part of criminal investigation and forensic pathology. Frances Glessner Lee (eighteen seventy-eight to nineteen sixty-two), a New England heiress who dedicated her life to the advancement of forensic medicine, made a series of ceramic plates that illustrate the typical wound patterns caused by gunshots fired from a variety of weapons at different distances. The six ceramic “chest plates” here show wound patterns caused by a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, with lead bullet, shot at various distances. Bottom, left to right: Contact, one inch, three inches. Top, left to right: six inches, eighteen inches, exit wound.”](/issues/43/cabinet_043_postcard_2.jpg)
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