Civil War Washington

CASE.—Private John A. Schott, Co. C, 98th Pennsylvania Volunteers, aged 24 years, was wounded at the battle of Fredericksburg, May 3d, 1863, by a conoidal ball, which entered the left side of the face, about one inch below the eye, and passed inward and backward, entering the mouth, fracturing the hard palate and inferior maxilla, and totally destroying sight of left eye; then passed out again to the right side of the neck, and lodged superficially about one inch and one-half below the right ear. He was on May 7th admitted to Campbell Hospital, Washington, and transferred to Philadelphia, where, on June 28th, he was admitted into the Turners Lane Hospital. Simple dressings and flax-seed poultices were applied to the wound. On June 30th, there was much pain in the right superior posterior triangle of the neck, which was very much inflamed, and discharging freely from an opening in that region. On July 2d, the ball, with adherent piece of bone about one inch in length, supposed to be a portion of the inferior maxilla, was removed, suppuration and ulceration having taken place around it. Slight hæmorrhage followed the removal of the ball. On December 12th, the wound had entirely healed, and the patient s health was good, though there was much chronic enlargement of the right side of the face. He was transferred to the 2d batallion​, Invalid Corps, November 4th, 1863. Shott is a pensioner. He is very much disfigured. His disability is rated total. Pension Examiner Thomas B. Reed reports that he has to use an obturator to enable him to speak distinctly. A cast of the head, showing deformity, and the missile, a conoidal ball much battered and increased longitudinally by compression, with a spiculæ​ of bone lodged in it, are in the collection of the Army Medical Museum, and are numbered 1554 and 4518, Sect. I. The case is reported by Acting Assistant Surgeon David Burpee, who contributed the ball represented in the wood-cut (FIG.—. 160​), and the cast of the deformed face was contributed by Acting Assistant Surgeons C. Carter and C. B. King.