Civil War Washington

CASE.—Private Silas B——, Co. E, 4th Vermont Volunteers, aged 23 years, was wounded at the Wilderness, Virginia, May 5th, 1864, by a bullet, which entered at the posterior margin of the left scapula. He was taken to the field hospital of the Sixth Corps, where he remained until the 13th, when he was transferred to Douglas Hospital, Washington. Traumatic pleuropneumonia soon appeared; the right pleural cavity became full of serum and paracentesis was about to be performed, when the serum found a free escape from the wound of entrance. The discharge of serum was profuse; the vital powers gradually became enfeebled, and he sank and died from exhaustion on May 21st, 1864. Necropsy: The ball was found to have passed downward and toward the right side, comminuting, in its course, the spinous processes of the lower dorsal vertebræ and the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth ribs, and lodged beneath the skin over the twelfth rib on the right side. The right thoracic cavity was partially filled with dark-colored offensive serum; the lung was covered posteriorly with a large layer of lymph. There was no consolidation of the lung, but it was stained, of a dirty greenish color externally, and was softened within. The pleura was lacerated by fragments of bone, and several spiculæ were removed from the thoracic cavity. The pathological specimen is No. 3524, Section I, A. M. M., and consists of the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth dorsal vertebrae. The right transverse processes of the seventh and eighth are carried away, and a fragment of the ninth is chipped off. A portion of the fragments of the fractured ribs are with the specimen. It was contributed, with a history of the case, by Assistant Surgeon W. Thomson, U. S. A.