So hard and they, that when we had occasion to move him in lu-d, he muld l.e rais. d like a log of wood, at least so far as s IIisal>domneh distended, and ilhard. The were administered durinu' the course of i- him mueh relief 1rm the, hieh he so often complained. lie ally in the lied. hi< linili streteheil Strai the other up. Latterly he sufin a sever continued to shoot from I'ine, and also from interi: of the discharge from the wound, skin was always bathed in perspiration, the excretion having a most pungent and offensive smell. For some days before death a miliaiy eruption showed itself over the upper part of his body.
His pulse was slightly elevated during the course of the malady, but it never reached any very high standard. His respirations varied from twenty-six to twenty-eight per minute. A very viscid spittle, which he was always trying to hawk up, gave 1 ill 11 much annoyance. He had retention of urine, and latterly suppression. There was some blood mixed with his urine for a couple of days. I have already alluded to the treatment which was followed. Purgatives, opium given freely, at first combined with camphor, and latterly alone. He frequently took as much as fifteen grains of opium before he slept, and altogether he must have consumed a great quantity of that drug. He asked for fomentations to be applied to his limb, which to the hand felt colder than its fellow.
Their application, he said, gave him relief. His ability to swallow semi-fluid food enabled me to give him the most nutritious diet I could devise, along with wine. With intermissions and exacerbations his fatal malady progressed. A spasmodic cough was added to his other ailments. On the afternoon of the tenth day of attack, his symptoms greatly abated for some hours, and while he was conversing with a comrade, he was seized with what the orderly termed " a fit," vomited some dark matter, was severely convulsed, so that the body was drawn backwards and to the right side, and before reached his bedside, he was dead. By a mistake of the hospital sergeant, no post-mortem examination was got. I looked hurriedly at the wound shortly after death.
TKTAN: l.'f) The fascia lata was much lacerated. an<l the parts beneath skraghy. Barker, a private in regiment, aged 20, admitted into the hospital in camp on the same day as the last patient,.June A hall had penetrated his lelt thigh at its inn.-r and lower aspect, and d. It could not be found, though every means used. Four days afterwards it was felt near the w.uind, and removed. By the 28th the wound was looking sloughy, and the discharge was thin and unhealthy. He complained much more than was usual about his wound, and appeared very anxious. On the.'Jotli I noticed some twitching of the limb as it w.is being dressed. His bowels were free, but he complained of sleeping little at night.
The wound was freely enlarged, and covered with a poultice. He was purged with croton oil and clysters. He grew gradually worse. Durinuthe two succeeding days, the spasms were very! proimiiiieed over the left side. He described them himself as proceeding in "Hashes" from his wound to the spine, and back again. Touching the limb, and particularly the sole of the foot, immediately aroused the m<st violent spasmodic contractions. His pulse id his respirations to 29 per minute, lie did not complain of pain, but atly distressed by a thick spit wlneh dung to his teeth, and which he was iolent attempts to expel. The left Side of the i almost alone affected, and the <pasms. as in the case, drew him diagonally backwards, and ie wounded side.
He had no trismus for the first day, but afterwards it marked. He always said that he | ild only sleep, he would be all right. I brought him under the influence of chloroform, and while its effects continued, the spasms were relieved, and ivrtainly the pulse and respirations were reduced in frequency; but so soon as he awoke, all his worst symptoms returned in undiminished vigour. Having the utter futility of chloroform to relieve the spasms permanently, or to arrest the disease, in two former cases at home, where the anaesthetic had been fairly tried; and having many wounded to attend to, and no assistant to whom I could intrust the exhibition of the anaesthetic, I determined to abandon it and trust to opium.