Civil War Washington

CASE 80.—Date of origin unknown; unconsciousness; rose-colored spots: moist tongue; diarrhœa; rapid convalescence.—Private George Robinson, Co. B, 14th N. Y.; age 19; admitted Sept. 27, 1861, having been affected with diarrhœa for two months. Diagnosis—typhoid fever. He was partly comatose and difficult to arouse; pulse 80, firm, strong; face congested; eyes suffused; skin hot and soft; tongue moist, gray; abdomen tender and bowels moved twice. Calomel with kino was given. Next day the abdomen and chest were covered with rose-colored spots; the tongue was moist and coated, except at the tip and edges, with a rough brown fur; three stools were passed, and the abdomen was tympanitic and tender especially in the umbilical region; there was some purulent expectoration streaked with blood, but not much cough. No change took place until October 1, when sudamina appeared on the chest; the stomach became irritable, the bowels remaining undisturbed. Next day the patient looked better and had some appetite; his tongue was white at the tip and edges and brown at the base and centre. Turpentine emulsion was prescribed on the 4th. Profuse perspiration occurred on the 5th with sudamina, and on the 9th rose-colored spots appeared in fresh crops, which by the 11th were very profuse; headache, tinnitus aurium and deafness affecting the left ear accompanied the eruption, and the tongue, which had before been flabby and more or less patched with yellow, became red at the tip and edges and yellow-coated in the centre; he slept well, however, his appetite remaining good and his bowels undisturbed. On the 14th he was considered convalescent, and on the 21st was returned to duty.