[Bull horn wounds. A 1 year experience at the O'Horán General Hospital Mérida, Yucatán, México]

Taurine medicine has been able to open the way to the advance of science and to the adaptation of science to the patient with a bull horn wound so that at present, 95% of patients now survive gorings that were fatal in earlier times.

We carried out a retrospective study, utilizing clinical files from the O'Horán General Hospital in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico during January 1999 through November 2000 as a data-base.

Fifteen patients, all male, were treated for 26 bull horn goring wounds. The most frequently injuried patients ranged in age from 14-30 years. All patients were received at the Trauma Unit within 12 h of goring; gorings most frequently occurred in the town of Oxtcutzab, with from patients. Eight patients of is were bullfighters, all with different professions outside the bullfighting season; there were six spontaneous gorings, and the remaining patient was a cowboy wounded during work. Wounds of eight patients were closed, seven received open treatment. From time of admittance, all patients were administered a triple antibiotic schema, in addition to anti-tetanic gamma globulin and tetanic toxoid.

We carried out comparisons with our patient bull horn goring treatments and those published in the Surgical Round, Spanish Surgery, and the Mexican Journal of Orthopedics and Traumatology; our results were similian to those found in the international literature.