Title: Shafford, George E.

Source text: Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes and George A. Otis, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, Part 2, Volume 2 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1876), 277.

Keywords:injuries of the pelvisvesical calculi formed about bonedisability total and permanentinguinal herniastercoral fistula from wound of rectumvesical calculus

Civil War Washington ID: med.d1e10031

TEI/XML: med.d1e10031.xml


CASE 805.—Sergeant George E. Shafford, Co. G, 83d New York, aged 24 years, was wounded at the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, and made a prisoner. He was admitted to the Annapolis General Hospital, September 26, 1864, from the flag of truce steamer New York. Surgeon B. A. Vanderkief, U. S. V., records a "shot wound of the right groin, and diarrhœa." He suffered greatly with vesical irritation. He was transferred to Co. B, 97th New York, and discharged January 6, 1865, and pensioned. He returned to his home in New York, and, on August 6, 1865, consulted Dr. W. C. Livingston, who learned from the sergeant that the missile, supposed to be a minié musket ball, had entered at the right inguinal ring, passed through the bladder, and emerged at the middle of the sacrum. Urine dribbled constantly from the anterior wound. He lay under canvas until June 10th, when he was sent to hospital at Lynchburg, under the care of Assistant SurgeonH. C. Chalmers, P. A. C. S. About July 1st, urine began to pass by the urethra. By the middle of September, both openings had closed. Soon afterward he began to experience symptoms of calculus. On August 18th, Dr. Livingston, assisted by Dr. Markoe and others, performed the median operation for lithotomy, and removed an oval calculus and two fragments of bone encrusted with calcareous matter. In the course of ten days the urine passed entirely by the urethra, and the patient made a rapid recovery. The fragments of bone were probably chipped off from the pubis, in which a notch could be felt. On sawing the oval calculus, the nucleus was found to consist of a fragment of bone.

The later history of this case is reported by Dr. W. C. LIVINGSTON in the Proceedings of the New York Pathological Society. January 25, 1866; in the Medical Record, 1867, Vol. I, p. 185. The case is referred to, also, in Dr. T. M. MARKOE'S article in the New York Med. Jour., 1867, Vol. V, p. 30, Obs. XVI.—in Dr. F. H. HAMILTON'S Principles and Practice of Surgery, 1872, p. 118
The Pension Examining Board of New York refer to a feature of the case unmentioned in the other reports, a stercoral fistula, from wound of the rectum. A report datedApril 6, 1870, states: "Ball entered just below Poupart's ligament on the right side, passed through the bladder and rectum, and emerged three inches above the anus. In consequence of foreign material remaining in the bladder, vesical calculus formed, which has been removed by median operation. A complete fæcal fistula remains. Disability total, third grade, and permanent. He also has a reducible indirect inguinal hernia, of which we are unable to state the origin." This pensioner was last paid June 6, 1873.