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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![Private Henrj' Oarr, Co. K, 25tli Infantry; aged 21 years; Mempliis, Tennessee ; Febrnary 13, 18GS ; gunshot wound of the neck on a line with the upper border of the thyroid cartilage. Feb- ruary 28, 1868, doing well. Duty, April, 1868. Private William Gennigs, Co. K, 38tli Infantry; Fort Harker, Kansas; July 15, 1867; gun- shot wound of the neck by pistol-ball. Duty, September 19, 1867. Private Thomas Lee, Co. D, 9th Cavalry; Fort Stockton, Texas; January 17, 1870; gunshot wound of the neck by conoidal ball. Duty, February 21, 1870. Private Henry Spencer, Co. B, 80th Colored Troops; aged 29 years; Shreveport, Louisiana; October 17, 1866; gunshot wound of the neck by pistol-ball. Duty, November 5, 1866. The series of sixteen cases of gunshot wounds of the neck above recorded comprises no less than four instances of division of the carotid and one of the subclavian arteries, and five fractures of the vertebrae. In two instances the pharynx was wounded, with fracture of the hyoid bone in one case. In the case in which the oesophagus was wounded, and in five others in which no important organ was implicated, the patients recovered, but more slowly than after gunshot flesh-wounds in other regions. In the cases in which the great vessels were wounded, death was almost instantaneous, except in one, in which there was time to ligate the carotid, had surgical assistance been at hand. One of the patients, with fracture of the spine, survived twenty-eight days. GrUNSHOT WouNDS OF THE Chest.-—These may be subdivided into lesions affecting the walls of the thorax only, penetrating and perforating wounds of the lungs, wounds of the heart and great vessels, and those complicated by fractures of the vertebrae. Cases in which the diaphragm was perforated will be considered in the next section, the wounds of the abdomen being graver than those of the chest. There were eleven cases of re- covery after penetrating or perforating gunshot wounds of the lung, as follows ; LXII.—Report of a Penetrating Wotmd of the Lung, witli Lodgement of a Round Muslcet-BalL By Brevet Lieutenant Colonel J. R. Gibson, Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A. Lieutenant Franklin Yeaton, 3d United States Cavalry, was wounded in an encounter with Mes- calero Apaches in the Guadalupe Mountains, December, 1869; arrived at Fort Stanton January 6, 1870; was under the care of Hospital Steward Miller until his arrival at this post. This was a bullet wound, evidently from a small round rifle-bullet, of the left ulna, in immediate vicinity of the wrist-joint, (joint j)artially involved,) splintering the bone, but not completely fracturing it. The ball entered on the dorsal surface, emerging opposite on the palmar surface and an inch below; then it entered the cavity of the right chest, an inch from the median line of the junction of the cartilages of the seventh, eighth, ninth ribs, making a track which can be probed to the extent of six inches, the probe passing horizontally beneath the ribs, and in a direction toward their angles. The ball lodged, and cannot be detected ; no lung symptoms as yet have been manifested. [This ofticer spent the winter of 1870-'71 in the West Indies, in delicate health. He returned in the spring improved. He was examined by Assistant Surgeons Woodward and Otis, and recom- mended to appear before the Eetiring Board in session in Philadelphia. No alteration of the respiratory murmur or change in the density of the pulmonary tissue was observed. But the general health was impaired.—Ed.] 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21970695_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
