Civil War Washington

CASE 366.—Private I. Wetzel, Co. I, 184th Pennsylvania, aged 21 years, was wounded in the left thigh during the siege of Petersburg, October 3, 1864. He was admitted to a field hospital of the Second Corps, and transferred to Armory Square, Washington, five days afterwards. In July, 1865, Acting Assistant Surgeon H. A. Bobbins reported the following description of the injury and its result: "A conical ball entered the anterior aspect of the limb one inch below Poupart's ligament, passed backward, fracturing the femur near the trochanters, and made its exit at the apex of the left nates​. The limb was treated in Hodgen's splint without extension. The bone is now united with three and a quarter inches shortening; the foot is everted and the limb slightly turned outward. Incomplete anchylosis of the knee joint exists, and there is still a discharge of healthy pus amounting to about one ounce daily. The patient is not yet able to use crutches, but from present appearances he soon will be." The patient was discharged from service on August 21, 1865, and pensioned. Various Pension Examiners, at successive dates, certified to "shortening of the limb and partial anchylosis of the knee;" and in March, 1877, Dr. J. Y. Shindell reported as follows: "I find the left knee joint quite stiff, also evidences of occasional abscesses in the muscular portions of the leg. He says that about once a year matter does form, and that he continually wears bandages around the thigh as a support." In September, 1877, the Examiner stated: "The pensioner's general physical condition is not good. He is now confined to his bed, and has been for the last two weeks, on account of his wound, which is again suppurating. * * * But the greatest trouble now seems to be in the hip joint and its neighborhood. On probing the opening a little above the joint the body of the ilium seems to be of a honey-combed nature, diseased, and, no doubt, the cause of these frequent attacks of suppuration which occur every three or four months. His leg trouble will very likely cause death some time." The pensioner was paid March 4, 1879. The wood-cut (FIG. 136) represents a photograph taken at the Army Medical Museum on July 6, 1865. (Surg. Phot. Series, No. 67, A. M. M.)