Civil War Washington

CASE 2.—Private Franklin Cooker, Co. A, 138th Pa.; age 20; was struck, Jan. 24, 1864, in the lumbar region and knocked down by the limb of a tree. He was stiff and sore for a few days after this, but continued to do duty until one morning, after a wet night on picket, his legs became paralysed and painful. He also had a sharp pain in the back and the feeling as if a cord were bound tightly around his hips; there was no loss of tactile sensation. He was admitted May 11, having been under treatment in the Emory hospital, Washington, D. C., since February 2. On admission he tried to walk with crutches; there was muscular hyperæsthesia, mostly on the left side; tactile sensibility was impaired on the inside of the thighs, around the knees and on the outside of the feet, and this impairment was greater on the right than on the left side; there was tenderness on pressure over the vertebræ from the first dorsal to the last. Galvanism and tonics were employed. Furloughed August 20; returned September 8. Furloughed November 3; returned on the 24th. Returned to duty on the 26th.—Turner's Lane Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa. [This man served with his command until it was mustered out, June 23, 1865.]