Civil War Washington

CASE 151.—Private Orlando Newkirk, Co. A, 43d N. Y.; age 25; admitted July 30, 1863, having been in low condition and delirious with typhoid pneumonia for ten days previous. He suffered from diarrhœa with frequent vomiting. Died August 6. Post-mortem examination: The brain weighed fifty-four ounces and was soft; the posterior portion of the cerebrum was intensely red; the ventricles contained half a drachm of bloody liquid. The trachea was filled with frothy secretion, congested purplish in its lower portion and at its bifurcation enlarged and softened. The mucous membrane of the epiglottis and upper half of the larynx was purple; in the lower half it was pale. The right lung, thirty-one ounces, was slightly congested, intermingled with dark spots, but its base was hepatized red and the centre of its third lobe was grayish, solid and heavier than water. The lower portion of the first lobe of the left lung was covered with a layer of recent lymph and its substance was hepatized gray; the second lobe was dark-blue externally and on section reddish-purple and solidified in nodular masses; the lung weighed thirty-four ounces. The heart contained mixed clots and the pericardium eleven drachms of fluid. The liver and pancreas were healthy; the spleen large and soft. The mucous membrane of the stomach was parti-colored with a deep purplish patch in the centre. Peyer's patches and the solitary glands in the large as well as the small intestine were congested, but neither ulcerated nor elevated. The kidneys were much congested and firm, their pelves pale but with numerous injected points.—Ass't Surgeon Harrison Allen, U. S. A., Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.