Civil War Washington

In one case it is stated that the femoral vein was successfully ligated on the day of the injury; but unfortunately neither the records of the field hospital nor of the Columbian Hospital at Washington, where the patient was treated during the first five months after the injury, allude to the ligation of the femoral veinartery, and not until the soldier reached the hospital at Madison, Wisconsin, is the operation, said to have been performed on the field, mentioned, probably upon the patient's own statement. A brief account of the case is appended:

CASE 501.—Corporal G. Bulman, Co. G, 36th Wisconsin, aged 22 years, was wounded through the upper third of the left thigh, at Hatcher's Run, October 27, 1864. He was sent from the field to Columbian Hospital, Washington, several days after the injury, and five months later he was transferred to Harvey Hospital, Madison. Surgeon H. Culbertson, U. S. V., in charge of the latter, reported that the femur was fractured by the missile, and that the femoral vein had been ligated on the day of the injury. The patient was discharged from service May 22, 1865, and pensioned. Examiner W. H. Walker, of Fond du Lac, certified, August 11, 1865: "He was wounded by a ball through the upper third of the thigh from without inward, fracturing the femur. The muscles are adherent and the thigh is diminished in circumference two and a half inches. The circulation of the limb is much impeded from extensive loss and induration of the soft parts from hospital gangrene." Several years after the same examiner reported "deep and extensive varices and ulceration on the outer aspect of the calf from the obstruction of the circulation of the limb. The pensioner was paid December 4, 1879.