Civil War Washington

CASE 1772.—Private G. S. R——, Co. G, 3d Maine, was wounded at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. Surgeon J. M. Cummings, 114th Pennsylvania, reported that he was admitted into a Third Corps hospital for a "gunshot wound of the left arm," and December 23d transferred to Lincoln Hospital, Washington. Surgeon Henry Bryant, U. S. V., reported: "External condyle of the left humerus carried away; preservation was attempted. Died January 13, 1863. Autopsy six hours after death: The lungs and heart were found normal. A metastatic abscess occurred in the liver, on the inferior surface of the lobus major, of one quarter of an inch in diameter. In the spleen numerous small metastatic abscesses were found; some inflammatory congestion of the lower part of the ilium was observed. The left elbow joint, was destroyed; the ulna was dead for more than four inches below the articulation, and was completely surrounded by sinuses, so that the bone might have been removed by slight traction from its muscular envelope; the olecranon process was separated. All the articular cartilage was gone, except a little upon the head of the radius. The synovial membrane was, of course, destroyed; the sinuses were full of sanious fluid; the radius did not appear to be dead below the synovial membrane; the humerus was dead for three inches above the articulation." The specimen (FIG. 595), contributed by Dr. Bryant, consists of the bones of the left elbow. The external condyle has been split off and the olecranon destroyed as if by the oblique passage of a bullet. The fractured articular extremities are necrosed.