Civil War Washington

CASE 8.—Private William Bailey, 6th N. Y. Cav.; age 29; enlisted Aug. 1, 1862, and was sent to Camp Convalescent, near Alexandria, Va. Here he took cold by sleeping on the ground with insufficient covering, and was so ill as to be for a time under treatment in one of the general hospitals. In October, having joined a portion of his regiment which was then in Washington, he was severely jolted in trying to mount an unruly horse. The injury seemed to him to be somewhere in the abdominal walls. About a month afterward he was sent to Philadelphia to this hospital. On admission, November 12, he was a good deal debilitated; pulse rapid; tongue coated; expression of pain on his face; great tenderness with marked tympanites of the abdomen, and diarrhœa recurring every few days; appetite fair. He was treated with tonics, cod-liver oil, anodynes and nourishing diet. In January, 1863, he was put on digitalis as his pulse continued to range above 130. On February 20, when he was ordered to be discharged, his abdominal symptoms had left him and he was in good condition otherwise, except that his pulse remained over 120, rising to 174 when he walked to the end of the ward and back. I was unable to define accurately the source of the mischief in this case. The patient had not, according to his own account, had a distinctly malarious​ fever, nor had he while under my care a fully developed peritonitis. His heart was in no respect abnormal except in its irritability, which did not seem to arise from the state of the blood, nor was there any evidence of disease in any other organ.—Act. Ass't Surgeon John H. Packard, Satterlee Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa.