I was reading through HM 1st edition yesterday, in preparation of an upcoming HM campaign after a looooong time away from HM (needed to refresh my memories of the rules), and came upon a dilemma. The rules for the spreading of infection aren't explained very thoroughly. How I've always interpreted it, is that if an infection spreads, it is noted but has no other game effect than complicating possible amputations or the like. It still is only one wound, receives one healing/infection roll per day and if the original wound is cured of the infection, all the areas where the infection spead from that wound are cured of the infection too.

However, it came to me yesterday, that there is another way to interpret this rule (granted, it's a bit of a stretch though). What if the infection that spreads, creates a new infected wound of the same HR to all the adjacent areas. These new wounds would require their own healing/infection rolls and would need to shake off the infection individually. I don't think this is how the rules should go, but it gave me a pause yesterday.

So, I thought to ask the community how they handle spreading infection in HM (I'm using HM1, but the other editions aren't that different, so they'll do just as fine). As one infected wound in multiple locations OR as several separate infected wounds in multiple locations?

In HM1 if the infection spreads, it spreads to all adjacent bodyparts. This creates a series of new injuries with new HR. HM1 doesn't say what HR those new wounds will have but in HM3 it is H5 (a good value, infections are lethal enough in HM1 as it is).

Edit: Changed serious of wounds to series of injuries. Why, well, because it disturbed me.

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
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Really? Gracious, I've been doing it wrong all this time (since like the late 80's). Well, better to learn a rule (correctly) late than never. Thanks for the correction!