Civil War Washington

CASE 1792.—Sergeant B. McBride, Co. H, 88th New York, aged 25 years, was wounded at the Wilderness, May 5, 1864, and admitted to the field hospital of the 1st division, Second Corps. Surgeon J. E. Pomfret, 7th New York Artillery, recorded: "Wound of right elbow joint; fracture of bones. Resection by Surgeon P. E. Hubon, 28th Massachusetts." Assistant Surgeon W. Thomson, U. S. A., contributed the specimen (FIG. 615), and reported the result of the case as follows: "The patient was admitted to Douglas Hospital, Washington, on May 11th, with comminuted fracture of the elbow joint, produced by a conoidal ball. He died on June 13, 1864, of pyæmia, having had chills, profuse perspiration, and icterus for several days previous. At the autopsy fourteen ounces of dirty-yellow serum was removed from the pleural cavities, and numerous pyæmic patches were found in the posterior portion of both lungs. The liver and spleen were both softened, but contained no yellow patches." The specimen consists of the bones of the right elbow, from which the outer condyle and the head of the radius are missing. The articular surfaces are carious. (Cat. Surg. Sect., 1866, p. 150.) Evidences of periosteal inflammation with thin osteophytic depositions extend along the parts of each of the bones contiguous to the fracture. The operation must have been limited to the extraction of the fragments of the outer condyle and of the head of the radius.