Two bullets to the head and an early winter: fate permits Kutuzov to defeat Napoleon at Moscow

General Mikhail Kutuzov (circa 1745–1813) brilliantly repelled Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Honored as a national hero and a savior of Russia, Kutuzov has a unique medical story. He was shot in the head twice while fighting the Turks (1774 and 1788) and survived the serious injuries seemingly against all odds. The first bullet “ran through the head from one temple to the other behind both eyes.” The second bullet entered the cheek, destroyed upper teeth, traveled through the head, and exited the occiput. Massot, a French surgeon with the Russian army, wrote after treating Kutuzov’s seemingly two mortal wounds: “It must be believed that fate appoints Kutuzov to something great, because he was still alive after two injuries, a death sentence by all the rules of medical science.” Aided by Massot’s expert surgical technique, Kutuzov lived to become intimately engaged in events that altered world history. His health did, however, suffer significant effects due to the bullet wounds. In 1812, as Napoleon’s Gra...