A report on amputations at the hip-joint in military surgery / [by George A. Otis].
- Surgeon General of the United States Army
- Date:
- 1867
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A report on amputations at the hip-joint in military surgery / [by George A. Otis]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![shell, who died during the night succeeding the operation. The case is not mentioned in the casualty lists of the 18th Corps, and it has been impracticable to obtain any confirma- tion of the report. In the register of the Convalescent Camp Hospital, near Vicksburg, Mississippi, there is an entry of the case of Private Andrew M. Jackson, Co. C, 41st Illinois Volun- teers, wounded July 23, 1863, in the left hip, amputated and died July 29, 1863. There are no quarterly reports from this hospital, and all attempts to obtain further information respecting this case have been unsuccessful. It has been alleged that Surgeon Charles J. Nordquist, 83d New York Volunteers, amputated at the hip-joint, in May, 1864, during the battle of Spottsylvania, in tlie case of private J. W. Dadds, Co. B, 4th Maryland Volunteers. The facts of this case are still under investigation; but it is believed that the operation was an excision of the head of the femur. From the difficulty of collecting information from the rebel armies, vague and unreliable reports from tliat source are still more numerous. Mr. W. L. Henderson, a medical student under Professor F. II. Hamilton, reported to his preceptor tliat he liad witnessed an amputation at the hip-joint, performed in Marcli, 1862, at Memphis, Tennessee, by Dr. E. S. Fenner, and that he suljsequently saw the patient in perfect health as late as four months after the operation.-^ There can be but little doubt that this statement is entirely erroneous, and it is much to be regretted that it has been widely disseminated. Dr. J. W. Clift, of Savannah, Georgi^, reports that Dr. Cullen, a surgeon of General Longstreet's Corps, performed an amputation at the hip-joint for gunshot injury, and tlie editors of the Pichmond Medical Journal record that Dr. Cullen mentioned to one of them two successful coxo-femoral amputations within his knowledge.^ # Professor Paul F. Eve, has communicated the fact that a case-book of the late Dr. Hargrove Hinkley, surgeon of a rebel regiment, contained entries of three amputations at the hip alleged to have been performed at Jackson, Mississippi, in the summer of 1863. But Dr. John Pugh, of Pinecourt, writes that he was intimately associated with Dr. Hinkley throughout the war, and that he can positively assert that Dr. Hinkley never exarticulated the thigh. Professor Eve also mentioned that he had been informed, and believed, that Surgeon Cowan, of the stafi^ of the rebel General Forrest, twice amputated at the hip-joint during the war. ' See Circular No. G, S. G. O., 1865, p. 49, and A Trcatke on Military Surgery, by F. H. Hamilton, pp. 423 and 482. Dr. C. H. Mastin, of Mobile, Alabama, who was inspector of the rebel hospitals at Memphis in 1862, is positive that Dr. Fenner performed no such operation tliere. Dr. Fenner, of Memphis, called at this office in the summer of 1865, with Dr. Nott, of Mobile, and denied any knowledge of such a case. He suggested that the operation might have been done by Professor E. ]). Fenner. That eminent practitioner is dead; but his colleague, Professor D. W. Brickell, states positively that he never attempted the operation of amputation at the hip-joint. Assistant Surgeon W. S. Tremaine, U. S. Army, stationed at Memphis, Professor J. J. Chisolm, of Charleston, and Professor Paul F. Eve, of Nashville, have made diligent inquiries in relation to this alleged operation, and have arrived at the conclusion that the report of it is altogether apocryphal. ^ The Kii-hnond Medical Journal. Vol. I, p. 11, January, 1866. Dr. Gilmore writes that Dr. Cullen excised the head of the femur, in November, 1863, in the case of a prisoner, a Michigan cavalry soldier, who survived the operation a few days. This exarticulation may jirobably have been confounded with an extirpation of the thigh.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21289475_0027.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
