Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of LINCOLN HOSPITAL, Washington, D. C.; Surgeon Henry Bryant, U. S. V., in charge to May, 1863.

CASE 348.—Private Peter Manning, company B, 49th Pennsylvania volunteers; admitted February 19, 1863. Consumption. [This man appears on the register of the hospital of the 2d Division, 6th Corps, Windmill Point, Aquia Creek, Virginia, admitted January 20th—diarrhœa; no disposition recorded.] This patient was extremely emaciated and prostrate when admitted. He had a severe cough, with copious purulent expectoration; he was also suffering from diarrhœa, and had six or eight evacuations daily. His cheeks were flushed; pulse from 100 to 120; he complained of pain in both lungs, but especially in the left. Nourishing diet, wine, and anodynes were administered. Died, February 26th. Autopsy five hours and a half after death: Height five feet one or two inches; body much emaciated; rigor mortis marked; apparent age 30. The brain weighed forty-two ounces; it was light colored and quite firm; the veins of the pia mater were full of blood. The right lung weighed twelve ounces and a half, the left thirty-three ounces. The bronchial glands were large, soft, and black. The heart weighed seven ounces and a half; it was firm and dark-red; there was very little adipose tissue externally; there was a large, firm, black clot in the right auricle, and mixed clots in both ventricles; the clots weighed four ounces. The pericardium contained five ounces of purulent serum in which flakes of lymph floated. The liver presented the nutmeg appearance; it weighed fifty-nine ounces and a half; the gall-bladder was empty. The spleen weighed four ounces, was of a very dark-purple color and unusually firm. The pancreas was flesh-colored, firm, and weighed three ounces and a half. The suprarenal capsules were remarkably large, firm, and dark-brown internally. The right kidney weighed four ounces, the left four and a quarter; both kidneys were dark-red and firm. The fundus of the stomach was congested. There was an area of congestion in the middle of the jejunum, and patches of congestion in the ileum; the solitary follicles of the ileum were slightly enlarged, and two of Peyer's patches, one in the lower part of the jejunum, the other in the ileum, were thickened; the remaining Peyer's patches were healthy; in the vicinity of the thickened patches the intestine was contracted. There were a number of congested spots in the ascending and transverse colon. (The intestines were not examined until thirty-eight hours after death.)—Assistant Surgeon George M. McGill, U. S. A.