Civil War Washington

CASE.—Private Thomas H——, Co. I, 56th Pennsylvania Volunteers, aged 23 years, was wounded at the battle of Petersburg, Virginia, June 22d, 1864, by a conoidal ball, which fractured the right parietal bone at its anterior superior angle. He was admitted to the 4th division, Fifth Corps, hospital, and thence conveyed to Washington, and admitted, on July 1st, into the Finley Hospital. On the 4th, fragments of bone were removed from a space measuring two inches downward from the sagittal suture by one in width. Two days later, hernia cerebri appeared at the opening. The details of the further progress of the case are not recorded, but death resulted on July 11th, five days after the appearance of the hernia and twenty days from the date of injury. At the autopsy, the edges of the opening in the bone were found necrosed and cribriform. The dura mater and parts of the cerebral substance in the vicinity were congested and filled with coagulated blood. The specimen is figured in the wood-cut, and was contributed, with the history, by Surgeon G. L. Pancoast, U. S. V.