Civil War Washington

CASE 511.—Private M. Selvoir, Co. E, 5th New Hampshire, aged 27 years, was wounded at Farmsville​, April 6, 1865, by a round ball, which entered at the left ninth rib anteriorly, five inches from the median line, passed backward, and emerged half an inch to the left of the spinous process of the twelfth dorsal vertebra. He was conveyed to the field hospital of the Second Corps, thence, on the 19th, by the hospital transport State of Maine, to Washington, entering Finley Hospital. Acting Assistant Surgeon Dusenbury¹ reports that the patient stated that for a number of days after the injury he was confined to bed, and complained of severe pain in the left testicle. There was slow, steady hæmorrhage into the pelvis of the kidney, which found its way out with the urine, partly discolored and partly coagulated. After the subsidence of the hæmorrhage some pus was observed with the urine, which soon disappeared, with other troublesome symptoms, when the wounds healed rapidly, so that by July 1st they were entirely healed, with slight tenderness over the cicatrices. The patient was able to go about without inconvenience, and on August 1st did guard duty about the hospital. August 29th, he was transferred to Concord, and mustered out of service September 6, 1865. He is not a pensioner.

¹ DUSENBURY (H.), Cases of Gunshot Wounds of the Abdomen involving Viscera, in Am. Jour. Med. Sci., 1865, N. S., Vol. L, p. 400.