Civil War Washington

CASE 1522.—Sergeant Jacob P. Yakey, Co. D, 125th New York, aged 21 years, was wounded at Petersburg, June 22, 1864, and sent to a Second Corps hospital, where Surgeon D. H. Houston, 2d Delaware, reported that "he was struck by a conoidal ball, which entered the left shoulder at the anterior edge of the deltoid muscle, and fractured the humerus." On the same day Surgeon William S. Cooper, 125th New York, excised the head and three inches of the shaft of the left humerus through a ∨-shaped incision, the patient being under chloroform. The case progressed well. On June 28th, the patient was sent to Lincoln Hospital, and furloughed on September 17th, and discharged November 10, 1864. In January, 1865, he was admitted to a hospital at Troy as contract nurse. He had an abscess of the left arm. which was incised by Surgeon G. H. Hubbard, U. S. V., and a small fragment of necrosed bone was removed. After this the wound healed firmly. Sergeant Yakey was pensioned. Examiner W. S. Searle reported, July 6, 1865, "the arm is useless at present." Examiner A. Churchill, of Utica, reported, September 29, 1866, the injury and operation, and added: "There is still a running sore near the shoulder-joint, and another near the elbow-joint. The bone removed has not been reproduced; he has little control of the muscles of the arm, and the limb is of slight service for manual labor." Examiner C. B. Coventry, of Utica, reported, September 4, 1873, "almost total loss of use of the arm. Disability total." A photograph of the patient was made at Lincoln Hospital (Contributed Surg. Phot., A. M. M., Vol. II, p. 13), which is copied in Figure 3, PLATE XIII, opposite page 520. There has been no application for a supporting apparatus in this case.