A report of surgical cases treated in the Army of the United States from 1865 to 1871 / War Department, Surgeon General's Office.
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A report of surgical cases treated in the Army of the United States from 1865 to 1871 / War Department, Surgeon General's Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![supination of tbe fore-arm. He was weak, but tlie symptoms named Avere the only noticeable ones. Eest was ordered, with beef tea and milk-puucli at regular intervals. A few days after Lis admis- sion, there was a i)rofase stringy discharge from the throat; he remained in almost the same con- dition for a week, with the exception that he gradually grew weaker ; deglutition became somewhat . more difficult. Death, from seeming exhaustion, resulted December 26,1867. Post-mortem exam- ination revealed a short sinus filled witli pus, connected with the external wound; but a careful examination of the parts did not disclose the track of the ball. The neck, toward the right shoul- dei, was carefully dissected, and no lesion discovered. The parts lying in front of the cervical ver- tebrse were then removed, down to the oesophagus and pharynx, where an opening was discovered in the posterior wall of the pharynx, and beneath it the ball, embedded in the anterior surface of the body of the fifth vertebra. The pathological specimen is numbered 558i, Section 1, Army Medical Museum, and was contributed, with a history of the case, by Surgeon C. H. Alden, U. S. A. LI.— Extract from Monthly Report of Wounded of July, 1809, of Detachment of 1th United States Cavalry. By Henry Lippincott, Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A. Private Johu A. Wright, Co. I, 7th United States Cavalry, was accidentally shot on the 17th day of July, 1869, in a scout, near Fort Hays, Kausas. The ball entered the throat at a iioint corresponding with the fourth ring of the trachea. Passing upward, it destroyed the first, second, and third ring, as well as the fourth. It destroyed, besides the portion of the trachea just named, the thyroid cartilage, and in its ascent fractured the hyoid bone. In addition to these injuries, the inferior maxilla was severely fractured, the ball emerging just in front of the inferior incisors. The shock was terrible. With a view to the arrest of the haemorrhage, too sudden and great reaction was guarded against; but the shock was not neglected. The wounded tissues were kept apart to favor the exit of accumulating blood. After this a silver tube was inserted, and seemed for a time to afford relief; but despite all attempts to avert the fatal issue, dissolution took jjlace in a few hours. LII.—ISfote of a Case of Fatal Gunshot Wound of the Neclc. By C. L. Heizmann, Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A. Private James Morrissey, Co. B, 34th United States Infantry, was shot through the neck at Grenada, Mississippi, March 28, 1868. The missile entered on the left side, at a i)oint two and a half inches on a line drawn ijerpendicularly to the clavicle from the lobe of the ear, and emerged about one and a half inches from the spinous process on the right side, on a line drawn from the angle of the jaw to the spinal column. The carotid artery was severed, and death was almost instantaneous. LIII.—BemarTis on a Gxmshot Wound of the Neclc. By Alfeed DelAney, Assistant Surgeon U. S. A. At Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation, Private John Maybee, Co. C, 10th United States Cavalry, received a gunshot wound in the neck, in a drunken brawl, on the morning of November 19,1868. He was taken into hos])ital shortly after the accident, when he presented the following symptoms : Complete paralysis of both superior extremities; respiration gasping and frequent; pulse about 100, and of fair volume and strength; mind clear; he complained of some pain in the hands. On making a critical examination, the ball was found to have penetrated the neck, on the left side, at the anterior border of the trapezius muscle, and about two inches and a half below the mastoid process of the temporal bone; thence passed downward and to the right side, beyond the reach of the bullet i)robe, fracturing one or more of the vertebrae. A few accessible and loose fragments of bone were removed, but the ball was not discovered. The treatment consisted in placing the patient, supinely, upon a water-bed, and the administration of anodynes to induce sleep and relieve pain. The bladder was relieved by the catheter. The paralysis of the abdominal muscles](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21970695_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
