P——, Lyman A.a machine readable transcriptionSusan C. LawrenceKenneth M. PriceKenneth J. Winkle2011med.d1e18303Civil War WashingtonUniversity of Nebraska–LincolnCenter for Digital Research in the
Humanities319 Love LibraryUniversity of Nebraska–LincolnLincoln, NE 68588-4100cdrh@unlnotes.unl.edu2011
The following are responsible for particular readings or for changes to
this file, as noted:
Kenneth WinkleAJ HowellMatthew BosleyElizabeth LorangStacey BerryElisabeth TraceyThe Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
(1861–65.)Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, United
States ArmyWashington, D.C.Government Printing
OfficePart 1Volume 21870393Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellionwounds and injuries of the facereview, hæmorrhages and ligationshæmorrhage in wounds of the facegunshot fractures of the facial bonesgunshot wounds of the faceparotid gland inflamedgeneral anesthesia, ethersubmaxillary gland abscessblessedadded figure encodingadditional proofing of transcription and encodingcase text extracted and transformed from larger
fileenriched encodingvalidated fileencodedinitial checking of OCR text against PDF; encoded
CASE.—Sergeant Lyman A.
P——, Co. D, 8th Now York Heavy
Artillery, aged 21 years, was wounded at Ream's Station,
August 25th, 1864, by a musket ball, which
entered over the right mastoid process, injured the external ear, and lodged under the skin,
a little in front of the auditory foramen. In the difficult retreat, from Ream's Station, he was conveyed to the Base Hospital at City Point, and thence was sent to Washington and admitted to the Lincoln Hospital, on August 28th.
The ball had not been extracted, and no symptoms attracted special attention until September 7th, when Acting
Assistant Surgeon A. M. Sherman, in charge of the case, observed that the right
parotid gland was so greatly inflamed that the patient with difficulty separated his teeth
more than one-fourth of an inch. In the course of the day, he had an alarming
hæmorrhage, supposed to proceed from the posterior auricular. This was stopped by
compression with lint steeped with solution of persulphate of iron. On September 8th, there
was no recurrence of bleeding; on the forenoon of the 9th, he had an alarming hæmorrhage, which was temporarily arrested, with
difficulty, by compression with lint and styptics, until the patient could be removed to the
operating room, when the right primitive carotid was ligated
by Acting Assistant Surgeon W. W. Valk, the patient being
etherized. The ligature was placed a short distance below the bifurcation, and coagula were
removed, and the ball, already mentioned, was extracted from near the angle of the jaw. On
the 10th, the patient was quiet, with a frequent pulse; on the 11th, bleeding recurred, and
again on the 12th, but ceased spontaneously. There was diarrhœa and vomiting. On the
14th and 15th, the symptoms were regarded by Dr. Sherman as
favorable. On the 18th, there were several recurrences of hæmorrhage; on the 19th,
there was much swelling of the face and neck, when the ligature was removed. The patient
died from hæmorrhage on the following day.
The following is an abstract of the notes made at the autopsy, by Acting Assistant Surgeon H. M. Dean: "Height, five feet seven inches.
* * * * The submaxillary gland was in a suppurating condition; * *
the jugular vein was perfectly normal; there was an abscess extending above and below the
point of the artery ligated about three-fourths of an inch; the ligature had come away, and
the two extremities of the artery, at the point of ligation, were covered with pus." The
wound already adverted to, behind the right ear, was connected with an abscess, which
extended down to the angle of the inferior maxilla, and contained a dark-colored fetid pus.
The artery from which the hæmorrhage came was not detected. The case is reported by
Drs. Sherman and Dean, and
Surgeon McKee, in his quarterly report, gives no
further remarks on the case by Dr. Valk. The pathological
specimen, figured in the wood-cut, shows one-third of the calibre of the vessel undivided.
In the wood-cut (FIG. 177), the ligature on the internal carotid
was apparently, as Dr. Woodhull has remarked, an experiment upon
the cadaver.