Civil War Washington

The history of the following case was forwarded to the Museum, with the specimens, since the close of the war, by the medical officer whose name is attached:

CASE 870.—Private John Churn, company D, 2d United States colored troops; admitted to Harewood hospital, Washington, D. C., January 11, 1866. Typhoid fever. Died, January 12th, at 6 P. M. Autopsy forty hours after death: A well-formed negro man, five feet six inches high; weight 130 pounds; slightly emaciated; a large triangular scar on the right thigh about an inch above the knee; rigor mortis well marked. The veins of the pia mater were finely congested; the pia mater readily separated from the convolutions of the brain; the substance of the brain was firm; the lining membrane of the lateral ventricles was opaque and appeared to be slightly softened; about two drachms of serum were found in each lateral ventricle; the fornix was slightly softened, the choroid plexus very pale; the pineal gland contained a small amount of calcareous matter; the cerebellum was large, its membranes finely congested; there was an accumulation of about three ounces of pinkish serum in the posterior fossæ of the cranium; weight of the brain was not obtained. At the base of the left lung there was a small amount of crude tubercle; the upper lobe was slightly congested, otherwise the lung was normal; the upper lobe and the posterior portion of the inferior lobe of the right lung were slightly congested; the middle lobe was apparently healthy; about three ounces of serum were found in each pleural cavity. The pericardial sac contained about two ounces of clear yellow serum. The heart was very large and flabby; it was dark colored and presented on its surface numerous dark spots, apparently ecchymoses; there were large white fibrinous clots in all the cavities of the heart, ramifying through the pulmonary artery, the aorta and their branches; the tricuspid and mitral valves were somewhat thickened, the aortic valves atheromatous, the columnæ carneæ; pale. The liver was large, of a dark bronze color, very firm, and slightly congested; the gall-bladder filled with bile. The spleen was normal in size and very firm, of a dark purple color externally, dark brown internally. The right kidney was very small and fatty; the left was larger than normal, being about three times the size of the right kidney; it was congested and very fatty. The ureters showed no abnormal condition. The omentum was firm, dark and congested; it was contracted into a band. The pancreas was large, very firm, and of a dark color. The stomach, near the cardiac orifice, was much congested; its mucous membrane slightly thickened. The mucous coat of the duodenum was thickened, its upper portion much discolored with bile; near the pylorus the solitary follicles were slightly enlarged. The mucous membrane of the jejunum was slightly thickened and congested. The ileum was covered with pseudomembrane, particularly its lower portion; in the upper portion Peyer's patches were slightly thickened, in the lower portion they presented a few points of commencing ulceration. The mucous membrane of the cæcum and colon was coated with pseudomembrane, greatly thickened, and presented a number of large but superficial ulcers. The urinary organs appeared healthy.—Hospital Steward Samuel S. Bond. [Nos. 698 and 699, Medical Section, Army Medical Museum, are from this case. No. 698 is a portion of the ileum near the ileo-cæcal valve, thickened and roughened by adherent pseudomembrane. No. 699 is a portion of the rectum much thickened; its mucous membrane presents large ulcers and patches of adherent pseudomembrane; between the large ulcers are numerous minute follicular ulcers. It will be observed that the case was really one of dysentery. ]