Civil War Washington

CASE 1540.—Corporal R. Fisher, Co. C, 7th New York Heavy Artillery, aged 32 years, was wounded at Cold Harbor, June 8, 1864. He was admitted to a Second Corps hospital, and, on the 10th, Surgeon J. W. Wishart, 140th Pennsylvania, excised the head and one inch of the shaft of the humerus by a straight incision through the middle of the deltoid. The patient was sent to Washington, and entered Armory Square Hospital on the 12th, and was finally discharged from service May 25, 1865. Surgeon D. W. Bliss, U. S. V., noted on his discharge papers: "Excision of right shoulder joint from gunshot wound. Assistant Surgeon J. H. Armsby, U. S. V., in charge of Ira Harris' Hospital, Albany, contributed to the Army Medical Museum a photograph of Fisher, taken at Albany, represented in the cut (FIG. 436), and also specimen No. 384, Section I, A. M. M. This specimen consists of a cast of the right thorax and arm, eleven months after the excision of four inches from the upper extremity of the humerus. The cicatrix is six inches in length, is parallel with the long axis of the arm, and has split the deltoid. The position whence the head of the humerus was removed is marked by a decided impression. Examiner R. L. Rea, of Chicago, December 17, 1866, reported: "Had four inches of the upper end of the right humerus removed; arm useless." The Chicago Board, Drs. W. A. Knox, J. M. Woodworth, and S. J. Jones, June 1, 1870, report: "Resection of four inches of the right humerus, including the head. No increase from this cause, but the applicant is in the last stage of tuberculosis, which was probably brought about by exposure in the service. Fisher died July 24, 1870. Dr. W. R. Marsh, formerly Surgeon 2d Iowa, testifies "that Fisher's death was caused by phthisis pulmonalis supervening upon a gunshot wound, etc., that the cicatrix of said wound indicates that the ball entered the right breast near the fourth rib and passed diagonally through the right lung and through the shoulder joint."