Civil War Washington

YETTER, JOHN, Private, Co. A, 11th New Jersey Volunteers, aged 21 years, was wounded near Petersburg, Virginia, November 10th, 1864, by a conoidal ball which lacerated the scalp, and contused the anterior portion of the left parietal bone. He was admitted to the field hospital of the 3d division, Second Corps, and thence transferred to City Point, and thence sent by the hospital steamer Connecticut to the Stanton Hospital, Washington, where he arrived on November 26th. There was a necrosis of the cranium, one-fourth of an inch in diameter. Low diet and gentle purgatives were prescribed, and, as suppuration became tolerably well established, emollient poultices were applied to the wound. On the 21st of December, the contused bone had become loosened by the process of absorption and suppuration. The patient was placed under the influence of chloroform, and Surgeon Benjamin B. Wilson, U. S. V., made a crucial incision, and removed a piece of the external table of the parietal bone, half an inch in diameter, and another, from the internal table, one-fourth of an inch in diameter. On the 29th, another piece of bone, including a small portion of both tables, was removed from the inferior margin of the wound. Water dressings were applied. The patient made a rapid recovery, without any untoward symptom; but it was thought inexpedient to return him immediately to active service in the field. He did efficient duty for some months as a nurse in the hospital. When discharged, on the general muster out of troops, June 15th, 1865, he was in excellent health. His name does not appear on the list of applicants for pension. The specimen (see FIG. 40) and notes of the case were contributed by Surgeon B. B. Wilson, U. S. V.