Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book and medical descriptive lists of the HAREWOOD HOSPITAL, Washington, D. C., Surgeon Thomas Antisell, U. S. V., in charge from October, 1862, to September, 1863:

CASE 293.—Private Charles Benedict, company C, 17th Connecticut volunteers; admitted April 21, 1863. Debility from fever and chronic diarrhœa. Treatment at first opium and tannin, then Dover's powder, afterward quinine and iron. May 26th: Was furloughed. May 29th: Returned from furlough laboring under a relapse. He had twenty thin, yellowish, bloody stools during the day. Treatment: Decoction of flaxseed with opium internally, enemata of starch and opium, nutritious diet, sinapisms to the abdomen. On the 30th there were six stools, and hiccough set in; pulse 160; countenance hippocratic; vomiting; profuse cold sweat. Treatment: Lime-water, pills of opium and camphor, sinapisms to the abdomen and neck. Died, May 31st, at 5 P.M. Autopsy: The body was not much emaciated. There were pleuritic adhesions on both sides; firm on the right side, slight on the left. The lungs were pale, but apparently healthy. The heart was rather small, pale, and coated with fat; there was a large, fibrinous, yellow clot in the right ventricle. The liver was mottled and fatty; the gall-bladder distended with greenish bile. The spleen was congested and softened. The stomach and duodenum were injected in patches. The jejunum was lead-colored, portions of it much injected. The ileum was much congested; its solitary follicles were enlarged to the size of a small shot. The ascending colon was much injected, and showed the cicatrices of former ulcers; the transverse colon was pale; the follicles were enlarged slightly, with minute depressions on their summits; the rectum was pale, and dotted with points of ulceration extending as far upward as the sigmoid flexure.—Acting Assistant Surgeon H. Hirshfield.