Civil War Washington

CASE 129.—Private William Sugars, Co, H, 132d Ohio; age 21; was admitted June 15, 1864, with enteritis consecutive to measles. On the 29th the abdomen was tender, the bowels loose and the chest painful on the right side; there was much thirst and the tongue was furred and brown. On July 4 the bowels were less irritable and the cough slight, notwithstanding some dyspnœa. On the morning of the 7th delirium was present but subsided by 11 A. M. At 2.30 P. M. his limbs became suddenly drawn up, his head bent on his shoulders, eyes open and glaring, face turgid and the veins everywhere much engorged. Death followed almost instantly. Post-mortem examination: The cerebrum was softened and its vessels somewhat injected. The lower lobe of the right lung was much congested, the middle lobe healthy, the upper lobe hepatized red posteriorly and gray anteriorly; the lower lobe of the left lung was hepatized gray in its posterior and lower part and elsewhere thoroughly engorged, the upper lobe congested posteriorly; the bronchial mucous membrane was much inflamed; the right lung weighed twenty-eight and a half ounces, the left twenty-five ounces. The pericardium contained four ounces of liquid; the heart was flabby; its right ventricle contained a large fibrinous clot extending into the pulmonary artery and its left ventricle a smaller but similar clot. The liver was flabby; the spleen, ten ounces, was soft and pulpy; the solitary follicles were enlarged, and a Peyer's patch just above the ileocæcal valve was somewhat thickened.—Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.