About 10:30 a. m., the morning of Jan. 9, 1958, a 56-year-old white man was brought to the emergency room of the Ruston Hospital. He had been transported in the back seat of a car, sitting erect, by two of his fellow workers. The patient and his friends described that he had been injured by a falling log. The patient was a woodsman engaged in securing pine logs for pulpwood. Apparently, the log had fallen from a truck and hit him across his back. He was completely conscious and talked coherently but complained bitterly of pain in his left chest region. He was having marked respiratory difficulty. A hurried examination, together with a portable x-ray of his chest revealed a complete collapse of his left lung. Despite this, the patient assisted in the examination and cooperated to the extent of rising from the wheel chair and seating himself on the