Traumatic insult may give rise to complex wounds, fractured bones, severed nerves and tendons, or amputations.
But what happens when its people slit open the abdomen of a fellow Catholic from navel to breast bone, sever his jugular vein and then gouge out an eye as happened to Mr McCartney?
"Cathartes Aura" (the title refers to the vultures that eat the discarded bodies) describes the imagined preparation of Levin's mother for sky burial: What is the body but a bag of alms for the Infection-Eaters, who will cleanse the corpse to the bone — Sever her arm.
The sequestrum has no connection to the normal bone through the Haversian system, (osteon) or the connection with the healthy bone is severed.
He sustained broken facial bones and severed nerves, and most of his teeth were knocked out.
After a three-week tour of medical sites in China, the delegation issued a report praising Chinese advances in setting broken bones, reattaching severed limbs and treating burns.
Had the bone, too, been severed, things would have been far more complicated.
DUJIANGYAN, China — The children who were considered fortunate escaped with a broken bone or a severed limb.
They had their limbs blown off, vital arteries severed, bones fractured, flesh torn open by shrapnel or scorched by the blasts' heat.
"They had their limbs blown off, vital arteries severed, bones fractured, flesh torn open by shrapnel or scorched by the blasts' heat," Atul Gawande wrote last week; the limbs come first.
