Civil War Washington

CASE.—Private Frederick L——, Co. H, 8th New York Volunteers, aged 26 years, having been wounded at Cold Harbor, Virginia, June 3d, 1864, was sent to Washington, and admitted to Carver Hospital on the 11th. A missile had entered the right side of his back, and penetrated the vertebral canal, shattering the transverse and articular processes of the eighth and ninth dorsal vertebræ. The patient stated that immediately upon the reception of this injury he lost all sensation and power of motion below the wound. On admission, he was in a very feeble state; there was psychical depression, with slow pulse, labored respiration, cool, clammy, and cyanosed skin, and involuntary passages of the excretions. In this forlorn condition, he lingered until June 27th, when symptoms of extreme gastric irritability supervened, and every form of nourishment was promptly rejected by the stomach. He died on July 2d, 1864. At the autopsy, a conoidal musket ball was found imbedded in the vertebral canal. The cord appeared to have been completely severed at the seat of injury, and was disorganized above and below. A section of the injured vertebræ, having the ball in the canal, was forwarded to the Army Medical Museum, with the above account, by Surgeon O. A. Judson, U. S. V. It is represented in the accompanying wood-cut (FIG. 192).