Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of LINCOLN HOSPITAL, Washington, D. C.; Assistant Surgeon Roberts Bartholow, U. S. A., in charge from August 21st to December, 1863, then Surgeon J. Cooper McKee, U. S. A., in charge.

CASE 396.—Private Peter Ball, company H, 66th New York volunteers; admitted December 29, 1863. Chronic diarrhœa. [This man appears on the register of the regimental hospital of the 66th New York volunteers, admitted December 8th—intermittent fever—sent to general hospital December 11th. No subsequent account of him is found prior to his admission to Lincoln hospital.] Died, January 24, 1864. Autopsy forty-eight hours after death: Height five feet eight inches; the body was much emaciated. The brain weighed fifty-three ounces; the subarachnoidal fluid was abundant; the pia mater was ecchymosed in spots; the lateral sinuses were full of blood. The right lung weighed thirty-two ounces; it was congested and marked, especially on its upper lobe, by streaks of black pigment corresponding to the ribs; the left lung weighed twenty-two ounces and a half; it also was congested and marked with pigment in the same manner as the right lung; the lower lobe appeared to be consolidated, but did not sink in water. The bronchial glands were black; some of them were hardened and contained calcareous deposits. The heart weighed six ounces and a quarter; its substance was flabby, the surrounding adipose tissue abundant; there was a large fibrinous clot in the left auricle; the aorta was reddened internally. The liver weighed forty-nine ounces and a half; its substance was finely mottled; the gall-bladder contained a little light-colored bile. The spleen weighed three ounces and a quarter. The pancreas weighed two ounces. The right kidney weighed six ounces, the left kidney six and a quarter. The mucous membrane of the upper part of the jejunum was congested and softened; the valvulæ conniventes were not prominent, and disappeared in the lower part of the jejunum, so that the ileum was quite smooth. The cæcum and ascending colon were ulcerated; the ulcers were more numerous in the transverse colon, where they penetrated to the peritoneum; they were generally grouped in rows corresponding to the longitudinal muscular bands; the ulcers in the sigmoid flexure were irregular and covered with shreddy lymph. The rectum was irregularly congested.