MISCELLANEOUS SURGICAL ANOMALIES.
Marvelous Recoveries from Multiple Injuries.--There are injuries so numerous or so great in extent, and so marvelous in their recovery, that they are worthy of record in a section by themselves. They are found particularly in military surgery. In the Medical and Philosophical Commentaries for 1779 is the report of the case of a lieutenant who was wounded through the lungs, liver, and stomach, and in whose armpit lodged a ball. It was said that when the wound in his back was injected, the fluid would immediately be coughed up from his lungs. Food would pass through the wound of the stomach. The man was greatly prostrated, but after eleven months of convalescence he recovered. In the brutal capture of Fort Griswold, Connecticut, in 1781, in which the brave occupants were massacred by the British, Lieutenant Avery had an eye shot out, his skull fractured, the brain-substance scattering on the ground, was stabbed in the side, and left for dead; yet he recovered and lived to narrate the horrors of the day forty years after.
A French invalid-artillery soldier, from his injuries and a peculiar mask he used to hide them, was known as "L'homme a la tete de cire." The Lancet gives his history briefly as follows:
During the Franco-Prussian War, he was horribly wounded by the bursting of a Prussian shell. His whole face, including his two eyes, were literally blown away, some scanty remnants of the osseous and muscular systems, and the skull covered with hair being left. His wounds healed, giving him such a hideous and ghastly appearance that he was virtually ostracized from the sight of his fellows. For his relief a dentist by the name of Delalain constructed a mask which included a false palate and a set of false teeth. This apparatus was so perfect that the functions of respiration and mastication were almost completely restored to their former condition, and the man was able to speak distinctly, and even to play the flute. His sense of smell also returned. He wore two false eyes simply to fill up the cavities of the orbits, for the parts representing the eyes were closed.
The mask was so well-adapted to what remained of the real face, that it was considered by all one of the finest specimens of the prothetic art that could be devised. This soldier, whose name was Moreau, was living and in perfect health at the time of the report, his bizarre face, without expression, and his sobriquet, as mentioned, ****** him an object of great curiosity. He wore the Cross of Honor, and nothing delighted him more than to talk about the war. To augment his meager pension he sold a pamphlet containing in detail an account of his injuries and a description of the skilfully devised apparatus by which his declining life was made endurable. A somewhat similar case is mentioned on page 585.
A most remarkable case of a soldier suffering numerous and almost incredible injuries and recovering and pursuing his vocation with undampened ardor is that of Jacques Roellinger, Company B, 47th New York Volunteers. He appeared before a pension board in New York, June 29, 1865, with the following history: In 1862 he suffered a sabre-cut across the quadriceps extensor of the left thigh, and a sabre-thrust between the bones of the forearm at the middle third. Soon afterward at Williamsburg, Va., he was shot in the thigh, the ball passing through the middle third external to the femur. At Fort Wagner, 1863, he had a sword-cut, severing the spinal muscles and overlying tissue for a distance of six inches.
Subsequently he was captured by guerillas in Missouri and tortured by burning splinters of wood, the cicatrices of which he exhibited; he escaped to Florida, where he was struck by a fragment of an exploding shell, which passed from without inward, behind the hamstring on the right leg, and remained embedded and could be plainly felt. When struck he fell and was fired on by the retiring enemy. A ball entered between the 6th and 7th ribs just beneath the apex of the heart, traversed the lungs and issued at the right 9th rib. He fired his revolver on reception of this shot, and was soon bayonetted by his own comrades by mistake, this wound also penetrating the body. He showed a depressed triangular cicatrix on the margin of the epigastrium.
If the scars are at all indicative, the bayonet must have passed through the left lobe of the liver and border of the diaphragm.
Finally he was struck by a pistol-ball at the lower angle of the left lower jaw, this bullet issuing on the other side of the neck. As exemplary of the easy manner in which he bore his many injuries during a somewhat protracted convalescence, it may be added that he amused his comrades by blowing jets of water through the apertures on both sides of his neck. Beside the foregoing injuries he received many minor ones, which he did not deem worthy of record or remembrance. The greatest disability he suffered at the time of applying for a pension resulted from an ankylosed knee. Not satisfied with his experience in our war, he stated to the pension examiners that he was on his way to join Garibaldi's army. This case is marvelous when we consider the proximity of several of the wounds to a vital part; the slightest deviation of position would surely have resulted in a fatal issue for this apparently charmed life. The following table shows the man's injuries in the order of their reception:--(1) Sabre-cut across the quadriceps femoris of right leg, dividing the tendinous and muscular structures.
(2) Sabre-thrust between the bones in the middle third of the right forearm.
(3) Shot in the right thigh, the ball passing through the middle third.
(4) A sword-cut across the spinal muscles covering the lower dorsal vertebrae.
(5) Tortured by guerillas in Indian fashion by having burning splinters of wood applied to the surface of his right thorax.