Civil War Washington

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

CASE 407.—Private Gilbert Keenholtz, company D, 7th New York artillery; age 37; admitted from Alexandria, Virginia, September 19, 1864. Chronic diarrhœa and hepatitis. [This man appears on the register of the Augur hospital, near Alexandria, Virginia, admitted September 11th—remittent fever—sent to general hospital September 19th.] The patient stated that he had been sick about four months; he was very yellow and anæmic. Died, September 23d.—Acting Assistant Surgeon C. H. Burgess. Autopsy five hours and a half after death: Height five feet six inches; rigor mortis well marked; body well nourished; skin icteroid. The brain appeared to be normal, and weighed forty-seven ounces; there was a larger amount of fluid in the sub-arachnoid space than usual. The trachea contained a considerable quantity of yellowish-white sputa. On section of the right lung an abundance of yellowish-white frothy fluid exuded; the left lung appeared to be normal; the right lung weighed fourteen ounces and a half, the left thirteen ounces. The heart weighed nine ounces; its valves were normal; there was a mixed clot in its right cavities, in the left a small vermiform fibrinous clot. The spleen weighed only three ounces; on section it had a granular appearance. The liver weighed seventy-two ounces and a half; its left lobe was entirely destroyed by abscesses; the right lobe contained two abscesses, one about the size of a goose-egg, the other about the size of a hen-egg. Both kidneys were slightly congested; the right weighed five ounces and a half, the left six and a half. The œsophagus, stomach, and small intestine appeared to be normal. In the cæcum there were several large ulcers, the longest diameter of which was transverse to the length of the intestine; the remainder of the large intestine was very much congested.—Acting Assistant Surgeon H. M. Dean.