Civil War Washington

CASE 9.—Private Marion Hague, Co. D, 14th Ind.; age 25; was admitted Oct. 25, 1864, with pneumonia. The patient was very feeble and restless; he had a severe cough, pain in the right side and hurried respiration; his voice was extremely weak. Dover's powder was given every three hours and mustard applied to the chest. He died on the 29th, after attempting to rise from bed. Post-mortem examination: Both lungs were adherent and in large part engorged, some portions of the right being hepatized. Four bird-shot were found encysted in the lower part of the costal pleura, but no cicatrix indicated their point of entrance. The heart was normal; a fibrinous clot extended from its right ventricle into the pulmonary artery. The liver was enlarged and contained some encysted bird-shot; the spleen also was much enlarged. The mucous membrane of the stomach was inflamed. Peritoneal adhesions bound all the abdominal organs together. [Specimen 444, Med. Sec., Army Medical Museum, shows a section of the hepatized right lung from which the adherent pleura has been partly reflected.]—Surgeon E. Bentley, U. S. Vols., Third Division Hospital, Alexandria, Va.