Civil War Washington

CASE 194.—Private Walter Wisner, Co. F, 6th Mich. Cav.; age 28; was admitted July 30, 1863, with typhoid fever, and died August 3. Post-mortem examination eighteen hours after death: The brain weighed fifty-three ounces; both lobes of the cerebrum were highly congested, especially in their superior and anterior portions, which were in part of a brilliant crimson color. The tracheal mucous membrane was of a deep dull-purplish red; the trachea and bronchi contained a thin bloody fluid instead of the normal secretion; the veins under the mucous membrane of the larynx were distended; the lymphatic glands at the bifurcation of the trachea were large, soft and engorged with black blood. The lungs were of a delicate pink color; the external and lateral portions of the upper lobes and the whole of the lower lobes were doughy, semi-solidified and engorged with dark blood mixed with a frothy bronchial secretion; the right lung weighed twenty-five ounces, the left twenty-four ounces. The cavities of the heart were free from clots, except a very thin wafer-like formation on the tricuspid valve. The liver was flabby and somewhat congested; the spleen, sixteen ounces, was grayish-purple in color and unusually firm. The intestines were diseased throughout; the mucous membrane of the upper portion was flaccid, softened and easily torn, the valvulæ conniventes of an orange-ochre color; Peyer's patches were enlarged, elevated above the surrounding mucous membrane, whitish in color and ulcerated, none of the ulcerated points being larger than the head of a pin; the solitary glands were also affected and, in the neighborhood of the valve, the mucous membrane was completely modulated with shot-like eminences; the mucous membrane of the last six feet of the ileum, which was the part chiefly involved, was of a dark-red color and its veins were very prominent. The kidneys were slightly congested, soft and flaccid.—Ass't Surg. Harrison Allen, U. S. A., Lincoln Hospital, Washington, D. C.