The surgeon should have a comprehensive knowledge of firearms as thermochemico-ballistic machines in order to come to grips in an adequate manner with the wounds they inflict on the human body. The traces left on the body to all intents and purposes embrace a cultural "cul de sac" which risks being defrauded of most of its content by a lack of those propedeutics elements which painstaking reflection is capable of affording us. Only the interpretation of each individual ballistic phase, both as a complete phenomenon in itself and as a component in a single articulated complex, can offer such elements: credit is due at least for a wholehearted commitment in this direction, while never losing sight at any time of the clinical perspective of such wounds.