Civil War Washington

BUTCHER, ROBERT A., Private, Co. H, 82d Pennsylvania Volunteers, of the 3d Brigade, 1st Division, 6th Corps, aged 21 years, received, in an encounter with the enemy's cavalry near Burke's Station, Virginia, on April 6th, 1865, two sabre-cuts over the vertex, parallel to each other, and at right angles to the sagittal suture. The wounds appeared to implicate the scalp only, and were approximated by adhesive plaster, after the hair had been shaven away. The patient was conveyed to Washington, and entered Harewood Hospital on April 16th. The wounds healed rapidly, and no unpleasant symptoms occurred until May 29th, when he complained of severe headache, accompanied by intolerance of light and sensitiveness to noise. A day or two subsequently the anterior wound reopened, and discharged thin unhealthy pus. An exfoliation was suspected, but no denuded bone could be detected, and under a mild evaenant treatment the headache subsided, and the wound again assumed an healthy aspect. On June 8th, 1865, it had almost entirely healed, and, at his own request, the patient was discharged from the hospital and from the service of the United States. Soon after his admission to Harewood, a photograph of his wounds had been taken, by direction of the surgeon in charge, Brevet Lieut. Col. R. B. Bontecou, U. S. Vols. This is preserved as No. 30 of the first volume of Photographs of Surgical Cases, Army Medical Museum, and is very faithfully copied in the figure on the left of the group of heads in the accompanying plate.