Civil War Washington

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

CASE 400.—Private Michael Weider, company G, 1st Maryland volunteers; age 40; admitted from the field March 25, 1864. Acute dysentery. Died, March 31st. Autopsy four hours and a half after death: Height five feet six inches; body very much emaciated. Brain not examined. The left lung was healthy, and weighed eleven ounces and a half; the right lung weighed twenty-five ounces; the base of its lower lobe was in the third stage of pneumonia; the rest of the lung was normal. The pericardium contained half an ounce of serum. The heart was normal, and weighed seven ounces. The stomach and small intestines appeared to be healthy, with the exception of the last thirty inches of the ileum, in which the membrane was very vascular and coated with pseudomembranous lymph. The whole length of the large intestine was extensively ulcerated; the ulcers varied in size from a quarter of an inch to an inch and a half in diameter; most of them penetrated to the muscular coat; between the ulcers the mucous membrane was coated with pseudomembrane in many places. The spleen was healthy, and weighed four ounces. The pancreas was healthy, and weighed two ounces. The kidneys were also healthy; the right weighed five ounces, the left four.—Acting Assistant Surgeon H. E. Paine.