Civil War Washington

CASE 6.—Deafness; successive crops of rose-red eruptions; bowels quiet but for castor oil; skin moist; date of onset undefined.—Private Charles Cheney, Co. G, 9th Pa. Vols. Admitted Sept. 19, 1861. Diagnosis—typhoid fever. No note of the case was taken until the 23d, when the patient was reported as quite weak and without appetite; his pulse 85 and quick; face flushed; eyes suffused; sense of hearing somewhat dulled; skin natural, showing an eruption which was not considered characteristic; tongue brown in the centre and moist at the edges; bowels quiet. Tincture of iron was ordered three times daily, turpentine emulsion every three hours, and Dover's powder at night. He slept some during the night and perspired towards morning, when the eruption of the previous day was found to have disappeared and been replaced by an abundance of rose-colored spots; there was some borborygmus, but no stool and no tenderness or tympanites of the abdomen. The patient was thirsty and his tongue red, dry and slightly furred, but there was less deafness. In the evening castor oil was given, after which he slept badly and had five passages from the bowels during the night with some umbilical pain; he perspired towards morning. Next day the tongue was red, dry and glossy, and the eruption fading. On the evening of the 25th acetate of lead and tannin were given with Dover's powder. On the 26th the pulse was 80, the skin soft and natural, the eruption disappeared, the tongue yellowish and slightly furred, the appetite improved and the bowels quiet. Some rose-spots appeared on the 27th and 28th, disappearing on the 30th. The bowels remained unmoved from the 26th until the 30th, when there was one stool; after this they continued unmoved until October 3, when the record closes—the patient's skin being in natural condition, his tongue clean but a little dry in the centre and his appetite good. He was transferred to Annapolis, Md., on the 10th.