Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of the SATTERLEE HOSPITAL, West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Surgeon Isaac I. Hayes, U. S. V., in charge. Autopsy made by Dr. Joseph Leidy, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania. At the time of the organization of this hospital a number of the leading teachers and medical practitioners of Philadelphia volunteered their services as ward physicians, and accordingly received contracts as acting assistant surgeons. To Dr. Leidy was assigned the task of conducting the autopsies, and a report of the results was forwarded by him, at the time, to the Surgeon General. This report was accompanied by a number of valuable pathological specimens, which have been preserved in the Army Medical Museum. . . . [Many] patients were sent to Satterlee hospital from the Army of the Potomac . . . and had contracted their disease . . . during the ill-fated Peninsular campaign.

CASE 171.—Private Dennis O'Keef, company F, 6th Maine volunteers; age 45; admitted from Washington, D. C., December 18, 1862. Intermittent fever. [The register of the Odd Fellows' Hall hospital, near the Navy Yard, Washington, shows that this man was admitted to that hospital November 17th, and transferred to another hospital December 17th; no diagnosis.] Died, January 22, 1863. Autopsy the same day: Body exceedingly emaciated; skin tinged with bile. Heart and pericardial liquor tinged with bile; the right auricle and ventricle each with a white opaque membranous patch the size of a quarter dollar. Lungs with old adhesions throughout, but otherwise healthy. Liver enormous, extending down the front of the abdomen so as to cover half the remaining contents; its surface was dull-brown, and coarsely nodulated; the right lobe contained a large multilocular abscess, filled with a pint or more of thick greenish-yellow pus; the left lobe contained a smaller abscess of the same kind; gall-bladder very small, filled with bile resembling coal-tar in color and consistence. Peritonitis. The small and large intestines covered with thin recent pseudomembranous matter. The stomach empty, apparently healthy. Pancreas dense. Spleen small but healthy. Ileum with the mucous membrane moderately inflamed and blackened. Colon exceedingly contracted; in the middle of its course not more than three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and all appearance of sacculi obliterated; its mucous membrane greenish-black, with streaks of inflammation and a few ecchymosed spots. All the intestines were empty, except a small quantity of brownish tenacious mucus, which was exceedingly fetid, adhering to the sides.—Acting Assistant Surgeon Joseph Leidy. [No. 333, Medical Section, Army Medical Museum, is from this case. The specimen is a portion of the right lobe of the liver, in which there are a number of irregular communicating abscess cavities, the largest four inches in long diameter.]