Civil War Washington

CASE.—Corporal Edward Briner, Co. B, 9th New York Volunteers, aged 23 years, a very robust man, was wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 13th, 1862, by a conoidal musket ball, which, crossing the coronal suture, fractured the right temporal and carried away a portion of the parietal bone two and a half inches in length and half an inch in width, exposing the membranes of the brain. He was immediately admitted to the field hospital, and on December 18th was transferred to the Armory Square Hospital, Washington. The pulsations of the middle meningeal artery were visible. The wound discharged healthy pus, and the case progressed satisfactorily until December 26th, when the patient became restless, and stupor ensued, terminating in coma on the 29th. A hernia cerebri half an inch in diameter appeared the next day. On January 3d, 1863, the patient had so far recovered that he could answer questions correctly. The hernia was then excised. Hemiplegia supervened on the 5th, and hernia of the size of a walnut again protruded. Though the power of prehenson was lost, the patient would eat with avidity whatever was placed in his mouth. On the 7th, an attempt was made to excise the hernia, but a severe hæmorrhage occurred from the small branches of the meningea media, which was with difficulty arrested by compression, and the operation was abandoned. Hæmorrhage recurred on the next day, and death ensued January 8th, 1863. The case is reported by Surgeon D. W. Bliss, U. S. V.