Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of the SECOND DIVISION of the ALEXANDRIA HOSPITAL, Virginia, Surgeon Edwin Bentley, U. S. V., in charge. Autopsy was made and recorded in the case-book by Acting Assistant Surgeon Thomas Bowen:

CASE 456.— Private Isaac Koonts, company K, 204th Pennsylvania volunteers; age 44; admitted from regimental hospital October 28, 1864. Remittent fever. Died, November 17th, of chronic diarrhœa. Autopsy forty-one hours after death: Rigor mortis moderate; body not much emaciated; suggillation posteriorly. Head, neck and spinal column not examined. There were no pleuritic adhesions on either side. The right lung and the upper lobe of the left were normal; the lower lobe of the left lung was in the last stage of pneumonia. The pericardium contained two drachms of fluid. The heart was normal. There were but nine attached and three floating ribs, one of the latter being about two inches long. The great omentum was very fat. The intestines were filled with gas. The liver was a little enlarged, and paler than usual. The spleen and pancreas were normal. The mesenteric glands were dark colored, and a little enlarged. The mucous membrane of the stomach, duodenum, and jejunum was normal. Peyer's patches were very dark in the upper part of the ileum, but not thickened or ulcerated; in the lower part they were slightly thickened, ulcerated, and apparently undergoing the healing process. The colon was much thickened, blackened, and ulcerated. The rectum was still more extensively ulcerated. The kidneys were normal; the bladder contained half a pint of urine.—Acting Assistant Surgeon Thomas Bowen.