Civil War Washington

CASE 24.—Private John North, Co. E, 5th Mich. Cav., was admitted March 25, 1863, having been sick for some time in regimental hospital. He was delirious and had high fever, a tremulous full pulse, sordes upon the mouth and teeth, a typhoid fever tongue, some cough and expectoration, pain in the right iliac fossa and diarrhœa, the evacuations soon becoming involuntary and offensive. He died on the 28th. Post-mortem examination twelve hours after death: No emaciation; rigor mortis marked; apparent age 21 years. The brain was healthy. The right lung was congested and weighed twenty-five ounces; the left twenty-six ounces, its lower lobe being intensely engorged and in some parts hepatized. The right side of the heart contained a blackish clot of moderate size; the left ventricle a smaller clot. The liver was pale, its acini well defined, its texture softer than usual, its weight seventy-three ounces and a half; the gall-bladder contained five drachms of deep-yellow flaky bile. The spleen was soft, deep purplish-black and weighed eighteen ounces. The pancreas and kidneys were normal. The stomach was red at the fundus. Peyer's patches were indurated, thickened and in many places ulcerated. The solitary glands were so numerous that on a square inch selected at random fifteen were counted; they were large, about two lines in diameter. The mucous membrane of the large intestine was generally mottled red, but in the ascending colon it was of a light slate color mottled with red; the solitary glands in the cæcum were enlarged and several of them ulcerated.—Ass't Surg. Harrison Allen, U. S. A., Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.