Civil War Washington

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

CASE 414.—Private Amos Allen, company H, 105th Pennsylvania volunteers; age 21; admitted from City Point, Virginia, October 8, 1864. Acute diarrhœa. This case was complicated with pleuro-pneumonia. The patient was much emaciated. The diarrhœa was arrested by appropriate remedies, but the chest-symptoms proved fatal. The patient suffered but little pain. Died, December 8th.—Acting Assistant Surgeon A. M. Sherman. Autopsy eight hours after death: Height five feet eleven inches; rigor mortis not well marked; body considerably emaciated. The brain was normal; weight forty-two ounces and a half. The larynx and trachea were normal. The right pleural sac contained fourteen ounces of fluid and a considerable quantity of recently deposited lymph. The lower lobe of the right lung was hepatized, and had in its centre a cavity containing about two ounces of a quite black and very fetid fluid the odor of which was peculiar and almost intolerable; the other lobes were normal; the lung weighed twenty-five ounces; the lower lobe of the left lung was in the stage of red hepatization; the upper lobe was normal; the left lung weighed twenty-one ounces. The heart was normal; weight six ounces and a half; the left auricle contained a small black clot. The liver, externally and on section, was of a much darker color than usual; it weighed forty-nine ounces. The spleen weighed seven ounces and a half; the right kidney six ounces, the left four and a half; the right kidney was much congested. The œsophagus, stomach, and small intestine were normal, with the exception of three small ulcers in the lower portion of the ileum. The large intestine was studded with ulcers with sharp-cut edges and dark-brown bases.—Acting Assistant Surgeon H. M. Dean.