Civil War Washington

CASE 979.—Punctured wound of knee joint.—Private T. A. Jackson, Co. H, 1st Rhode Island Cavalry, aged 23 years, is recorded by Assistant Surgeon E. J. Marsh, U. S. A., as having been admitted to Judiciary Square Hospital, Washington, April 29, 1863, with a "perforating wound of the left knee," and as having been transferred to Philadelphia one week afterwards. Acting Assistant Surgeon W. W. Keen, jr.​, reported the case as a "punctured wound of the knee joint" and described the injury as follows: "The patient was admitted to Satterlee Hospital May 7th. He stated that in the previous December he met with a fall from his horse, during which a pair of scissors from his knapsack punctured the knee joint and broke off; that the points were removed three days after the accident, being three inches deep according to the statement of his surgeon, and that severe inflammation followed and a large number of abscesses formed about the joint. At the time of the patient's admission the injured joint was smaller than the sound one, the hamstrings were contracted, and motion was limited from complete flexion to an angle of 135° with the thigh. Crepitation was very marked and motion of the patella much restricted. Just to the inside and above the tubercle of the tibia there was a cicatrix from a wound, and all about the joint old cicatrices from abscesses were found. The evidence was rather in favor of penetration of the joint, both by the position of the cicatrix mentioned and the escape of synovia, which seems probable from his statement, though of this he is not quite confident. The scissors were rusty when he was wounded. He walks about on crutches but is unable to bear weight on the limb." Surgeon I. I. Hayes, U. S. V., reported that the patient was discharged from June 1, 1863, by reason of anchylosis of the left knee joint resulting from an injury by scissors penetrating the knee joint." The man is not a pensioner.