File:Stomach of Pvt. John Brown (SP 218), National Museum of Health and Medicine (4382250513).jpg

Stomach of Pvt. John Brown (SP 218), National Museum of Health and Medicine

Description: The stomach of Private John Brown, Company I, 9th Minnesota Volunteers, who was wounded near Nashville, Tennessee on December 16, 1864. The bullet penetrated his ribs and abdomen, passing through his stomach, colon, and vertebrae. The patient died from these wounds on December 17, 1864. Caption reads: “War Department, Surgeon General’s Office, Army Medical Museum. Surgical Photograph, No. 218. Prepared under the supervision of Assistant Surgeon General George A. Otis, U.S.A. by order of the Surgeon General.”

History is on reverse: “Surgeon General’s Office, Army Medical Museum. Photograph No. 218. Perforation of Stomach by a Conoidal Musket Ball. Private John Brown, Co. I, 9th Minnesota Volunteers, aged twenty-eight years, was wounded in front of Nashville, Tennessee, December 16, 1864, by a conoidal musket ball, which penetrated the left chest at the cartilaginous junction of the eighth and ninth ribs, three inches below the nipple. On the night of the same day he was admitted to Hospital No. 8, Nashville. The shock of injury was very great, and he suffered intensely from sharp pain in the chest and abdomen. There was, also, paralysis of motion and of sensation in the left lower extremity. Expectant treatment was used, but the patient soon collapsed, and died at 8:30,P.M., on December 17, 1864. At an autopsy, twenty-two hours after death, pleuritic adhesions were found; the capacity of left lung was much diminished; the abdominal cavity showed evidences of intense peritonitis, and the viscera were softened and of a dark green color. The missile had passed downwards, inwards and backwards, and piercing the diaphragm near its anterior border, leaving an opening two inches in length through which a portion of omentum had escaped into the lower cavity of thorax, perforated the splenic end of the stomach, leaving an interval of three inches between the openings; thence, it passed through the transverse colon, and fecal matter, with a large amount of escaped blood, was found in the abdominal cavity; it then struck the left anterior side of the fourth lumbar vertebra, grooving deeply its left border, passed through the spinal cord to its left surface, fractured the left horizontal and spinous processes of the third lumbar vertebra, and was found immediately to the right of the second lumbar vertebra, underlying the integument and fascia of that region, very much changed from its original shape. The injured vertebrae are shown in Specimen 3748, Army Medical Museum. Photographed at the Army Medical Museum. By order of the Surgeon General: George A. Otis, Ass’t Surg. U.S.A., Curator A.M.M.”

Date: circa 1864

Photo ID: SP 218

Source Collection: OHA 82: Surgical Photographs

Repository: National Museum of Health and Medicine, Otis Historical Archives