A soldier suffered amputation of the thigh five weeks after the injury, in consequence of a gunshot fracture at Toulouse, he being in a very reduced state, the discharge profuse, the pain great, hectic fever severe. The third day after the operation, from which he scarcely rallied, he complained of difficulty in swallowing, and pain in the situation of the thyroid gland, which was found next morning to be inflamed. In spite of the means employed, he died on the fourth day of this attack, or the seventh after the amputation, in a state of great emaciation. On dissection, the whole substance of the thyroid gland was destroyed, a deposit of good pus occupying its place, which descended by the sides of the trachea and œsophagus to the sternum, and had all but found its way into the larynx, between the cricoid and thyroid cartilages on the right side.
Daniel Lynch, wounded through the knee-joint at the battle of Toulouse, on the 12th of April, 1814, had his thigh amputated by the late Mr. Boutflower, on the 8th of May. The night succeeding the operation he passed comfortably. Next day, the 9th, the febrile symptoms were augmented. On the 10th he was worse; pulse 150. On the 11th he was better. On the 16th he was considered to be in a state of convalescence, and went on improving until the 22d, when fever recurred. On the 28th his stomach became very irritable; the stump appeared to be nearly healed, the discharge being small, and of good quality; one ligature remained. 30th: Pulse 110; tongue of a brownish hue. During the 31st and 1st of June he got worse, and died. The stump appeared to have united externally, except where the ligatures came out; but, on cutting through the line of adhesion, the muscular parts within were evidently unhealthy; the bone was surrounded for some distance by a case of osseous matter, including the remaining ligature, which could not be removed by any force short of breaking it. The femur was bare, and showed marked signs of absorption having commenced; three inches of it must have come away if the man had lived. The extremity of the vein was in a sloughing state.
Having dissected the other extremity for a clinical lecture I was occasionally in the habit of giving on particular cases, a semi-transparent membranous bag, containing good pus, was found accidentally on the tibialis posticus muscle. The blood in the perineal vein outside of it was coagulated; there were little or no marks of inflammation, and the matter appeared to have been deposited without any. The inner side of the soleus muscle seemed simply to be discolored.