Civil War Washington

CASE 67.—Private Asa C. Wentworth, Co. H, 19th Me.; was admitted Nov. 26, 1863, with jaundice. [This man appears on the register of the regimental hospital as admitted on the 18th with typho-malarial fever and sent to general hospital on the 22d.] Died Jan. 12, 1864. Post-mortem examination twenty-two hours after death: The pharynx and larynx were inflamed; the soft palate hard, stiff and white; the tonsils unaffected; between the pharynx and right arytenoid cartilage was a large abscess with hard, yellowish-white walls; the cartilage mentioned was the seat of a protuberance, probably a collection of pus; there was also a small abscess immediately above the left greater cornu of the hyoid bone; the vocal chords and the upper surface of the epiglottis were œdematous. The pericardium contained seventeen drachms of yellowish fluid; the heart was very soft. The liver was bronzed and mottled with hard lardaceous spots, the gall-bladder full of dark-brown viscid bile; the spleen was rather small and extremely soft; the pancreas soft and of a dull-red color; the kidneys congested. In the ileum the villi were very soft; Peyer's patches were not raised, but one of them presented an ulcer with low rounded edges, at the base of which the transverse muscular fibres could be seen; the ileum had the ironed-out appearance. The colon was slate-colored, its solitary follicles whitish, with conspicuous dark-spotted centres.—Ass't Surg. Harrison Allen, U. S. A., Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.