Civil War Washington

Case from the case-book of the THIRD DIVISION of the ALEXANDRIA HOSPITAL, Surgeon Edwin Bentley, U. S. V., in charge:⃰

CASE 529.—Private David Shawley, company A, 45th Pennsylvania volunteer; age 18; admitted July 20, 1864. Chronic diarrhœa. [This man appears on the register of the Augur hospital, near Alexandria, Virginia, admitted July 4th—chronic diarrhœa—sent to general hospital July 20th.] Improved under treatment, and was on duty as a cook February 1, 1865, when he was attacked by pneumonia, and died February 18th. Autopsy: No rigor mortis; body still warm. There was considerable effusion in the ventricles of the brain. Both lungs contained miliary tubercles, and presented evidences of intercurrent pneumonia, which at the apices had advanced to gray hepatization; the left lung was coated with layers of whitish-yellow lymph half an inch thick, by which it was extensively connected with the thoracic parietes; there was very little serum in the pleural sac; at the apex of the right lung was a vomica the size of a pea. The heart was normal. The liver presented the nutmeg appearance. The spleen was large, of a dark-brown color, and softened. In the ileum an intussusception some three inches in length was observed, and the mucous membrane presented a number of tubercular ulcers. The corresponding mesenteric glands were as large as marbles, and contained a cheesy tubercular deposit; there were, however, no tubercles on the intestinal peritoneum.

⃰ It is to be regretted that, in most instances, the records of this hospital do not show by whom the autopsies were made. It is known that many of them were made by Surgeon Bentley himself, or under his immediate supervision, but it is only possible to distinguish these from the others in a few cases.