Hank Reinhardt's The Book of the Sword by Hank Reinhardt Page A

moan! Now it can happen that way, but it isn't very likely. Rapiers and small swords make small holes. If they hit a major artery or vein, or a nerve plexus, death can occur rather quickly. But even a direct thrust through the heart can take as long as ten seconds to kill, depending on the amount of blood in the brain at the time of the strike. And a man can do a lot of damage in ten seconds! Like stabbing you before you can withdraw your blade. There are many fights recorded where both parties received several puncture wounds in the body, and both recovered. There were also many instances of fights where one man died on the spot, while another lingered for two weeks before dying from a thrust in the stomach. There are several excellent books on the subject of dueling and one can easily see that death was not the swift and easy thing that we see in the movies. (For a more comprehensive study of dueling I would suggest The Sword and The Centuries by Alfred Hutton, The Field of Honor by Ben Truman, Milligen's History of Dueling and Dueling Stories of the Sixteenth Century by George H. Powell. There are more books out there, but I think these are the best.)
    One of the more unpleasant aspects of dueling in 17th and 18th century Europe was to win the duel by killing your opponent, only to be hanged for breaking the law . . . seems positively unsporting, doesn't it?
    But we could talk a long time about dueling itself, so now let us get back to the wounds made by blades. Back in the 1950s, I once saw a young man who had been attacked by two brothers. They had stabbed him three times in the abdomen, then run away, leaving the Italian stiletto still in the boy. Luckily for him, the knife was not particularly sharp. It had pushed his entrails aside, and he ended up with only three minor punctures to the muscle wall. Had he been stabbed with a knife with a wide, sharp blade, the results could have been much more unpleasant. With a wider bladed sword, such as a Viking, medieval or Roman weapon, the results of a thrust would be more deadly. The wider the blade, the more damage done.
     
    Reproduction gladius. HRC218.
     
    Whereas it is possible for a rapier or a small sword to penetrate a chest cavity without seriously damaging the individual, and to even push the intestines aside (not likely, but possible), a wide-bladed sword will be cutting the tissue as it passes in and out, making a much larger, and much more deadly, wound.
    The comment on a "stab in the right place" seems to be Roman in origin. But even then the operative words are "right place." The Roman gladius was a very effective cut-and-thrust weapon. Many think that it was only used in the thrust, but it is capable of delivering a very strong cutting blow. But its primary use was as a stabbing weapon. Held close to the body, the moment an opening presented itself the short sword could leap out and inflict a very deadly stab. With a blade close to two inches in width, and very sharp, the stab of a gladius was nothing like the pinprick of a rapier.
    I was recently asked if the thrust was known and used in medieval times, and if so, why was it considered so innovative and dastardly by gentlemen in the Renaissance? The thrust itself has been known since Og, son of Wog, picked up a sharp stick and stabbed Ug with it. The whole history of weaponry is filled with a collection of sharp and pointy things meant to cut and stab and generally hurt people. (Also heavy things meant to crush, but we're talking about thrusting here.) Early Iron Age swords probably did not have a good enough temper for good thrusting, but they were still used that way.
    For example, there is a very beautiful Celtic Iron Age rapier in the Berne Historisches Museum. The blade is a flattened diamond in cross section, perfect for thrusting, and could easily be a 16th-century rapier except for the grip. There is a whole class of medieval swords, Oakeshott Type XVII, that cannot be used for cutting: the blades