Civil War Washington

CASE 156.—Private W. S. Doyle, Co. H, 3d Mich. Cav.; admitted June 11, 1863; died October 15. Post-mortem examination: Sudamina were observed, especially on the abdomen and arms. The brain-substance was very firm; the lining membrane of the ventricles was roughened, especially over the corpora striata and the descending crura of the fornix, where the roughness seemed like an exudation of lymph, but it could not be detached without destroying the cerebral substance; there was no meningitis. The trachea, dark purplish-red in color, presented numerous minute whitish points of exudation on the surface of the mucous membrane at its upper part. The œsophagus was of a pale purple color superiorly and of a brownish hue below; an abscess the size of a chestnut was found in its walls. Both lungs were congested; the right weighing sixteen ounces and one-quarter, the left twelve ounces and a half. The heart contained fibrinous clots in both sides. The liver was firm, its capsule easily torn, its acini distinct; the spleen was pultaceous. The stomach was mottled and filled with liquid greenish fæcal-like matter. The intestines were distended with air; patches of the peritoneal surface were of a bright crimson color and the coils of the small intestine were glued together with recent lymph; the duodenum was of a dark color, its villi softened and readily detached; the ileum was passively congested, its solitary glands enlarged, its agminated glands elevated and whitish, those near the ileo-cæcal valve forming elliptical ulcerated patches with high thickened walls and smooth pale bases, in many instances covered by a whitish adherent exudation, while in one instance the peritoneum formed the base and in another perforation had taken place; the large intestine was healthy. The kidneys were normal.—Ass't Surg. H. Allen, U. S. A., Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.