Civil War Washington

CASE.—Private James L——, Co. I, 12th Mississippi Regiment, aged 26 years, was wounded at the battle of Spottsylvania​, Virginia, May 10th, 1864, by a fragment of shell, which produced a comminuted fracture of a portion of the left parietal and temporal bones. He was conveyed to Washington, and on the 14th admitted into the Carver Hospital, suffering constant and excruciating pain in the head. He was obliged to lie upon his left side in a recumbent position, and remain perfectly quiet. Simple dressings were regularly applied to the wound, and a restricted diet enjoined. A hernia cerebri appeared at the seat of fracture. Unconsciousness supervened, the breathing became slow and stertorous, and as the coma deepened, large quantities of laudable pus were discharged from the wound. He died on the 20th of the month. At the autopsy the fractured surface was found to measure three and one-half inches downward and backward, by one-half inch in width, from which fragments had been removed. One fissure run from the anterior inferior angle of the parietal, nearly to the sagittal suture, and a second crossed the lambdoidal. There was no attempt at repair. The specimen is represented in the adjoining wood-cut, and was contributed by Acting Assistant Surgeon O. P. Sweet.