Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of LINCOLN HOSPITAL, Washington, D. C.; Surgeon J. Cooper McKee, U. S. A., in charge.

CASE 398.—Private Franklin McBeth, company E, 67th Pennsylvania volunteers; age 22; admitted February 3, 1864. [This man appears on the register of the regimental hospital of the 67th Pennsylvania volunteers, then near Brandy Station, Virginia, admitted November 14, 1863—typhoid fever; January 1, 1864, chronic diarrhœa is recorded—sent to general hospital February 3d.] Died, March 4, 1864. Autopsy twenty-two hours after death: Height five feet six inches; body much emaciated. The brain was slightly congested, otherwise normal; weight forty-eight ounces and a half. The trachea and bronchial tubes were normal. The lungs were also normal, with the exception of slight congestion of the left lung; weight of right lung eight ounces and a half, left lung fifteen ounces; the left pleural cavity contained two ounces of bloody serum. The heart was healthy, its valves perfect; weight five ounces and a half. The pericardium contained two drachms of serum. The liver was healthy; weight forty-five ounces; the gall-bladder contained an ounce of bile. The spleen was of a dark-mahogany color; weight three ounces and a half. The pancreas was healthy; weight three ounces. The kidneys were apparently healthy; weight of right kidney six ounces and a half, left kidney five and a half. The bladder was considerably distended with urine. The œsophagus was normal. The stomach was moderately congested, its mucous membrane thickened. The duodenum was congested, and Brunner's glands were enlarged. Portions of the mucous membrane of the jejunum and ileum were congested. The solitary glands and Peyer's patches were thickened and very prominent, but there was no ulceration. The mucous membrane of the large intestine was thickened throughout, and studded with ulcerations of small size, none exceeding the third of an inch in diameter; some had apparently cicatrized, some were in the process of healing, while others seemed recent and extending; these ulcers were least abundant in the upper portion of the large intestine, the cæcum being nearly free from them; they were most plentiful in the sigmoid flexure and the rectum; the mucous membrane between the ulcers was dotted over with numerous little patches of pseudomembrane, which adhered quite firmly. The appendix vermiformis was capacious, its mucous lining thickened and congested.