The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and LettersBrown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
History
The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States, Including Full and Accurate Details of His Eventful Administration, Assassination, Last Hours, Death, Etc., Together with Notable Extracts from His Speeches and Letters
Brown, E. E. (Emma Elizabeth)
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
The right kidney weighed six ounces, the left kidney
seven. Just beneath the capsule of the left kidney, at about the middle
of its convex border, there was a little abscess one-third of an inch in
diameter. There were three small serous cysts on the convex border of
the right kidney, just beneath its capsule. In other respects the tissue
of both kidneys was normal in appearance and in texture. The urinary
bladder was empty. Behind the right kidney, after the removal of that
organ from the body, the dilated track of the bullet was discovered. It
was found that, from the point at which it had fractured the right
eleventh rib, three inches and a half to the right of the vertebral
spines, the missile had gone to the left obliquely forward, passing
through the body of the first lumbar vertebra, and lodging in the
adipose collective tissue, immediately below the lower border of the
pancreas, about two inches and a half to the left of the spinal column,
and behind the peritoneum. It had become completely encysted. The track
of the bullet between the point at which it had fractured the eleventh
rib and that at which it entered the first lumbar vertebra was
considerably dilated, and the pus had burrowed downward through the
adipose tissue behind the right kidney, and thence had found its way
between the peritoneum and the right iliac fossa, making a descending
channel, which extended almost to the groin. The adipose tissue behind
the kidney, in the vicinity of the descending channel, was much
thickened and condensed by inflammation. In the channel, which was found
almost free from pus, lay the flexible catheter introduced into the
wound at the commencement of the autopsy. Its extremity was found
doubled upon itself immediately beneath the peritoneum, reposing upon
the iliac fossa, where the channel was dilated into a pouch of
considerable size. This long descending channel, now clearly seen to
have been caused by the burrowing of pus from the wound, was supposed,
during life, to have been the track of the bullet. The last dorsal,
together with the first and second lumbar vertebra and the twelfth rib,
were then removed from the body for more thorough examination. When this
examination was made, it was found that the bullet had penetrated the
first lumbar vertebra in the upper part of the right side of the body.
The aperture by which it entered the intervertebral cartilage next
above, was situated just below and anterior to the intervertebral
foramen, from which the upper margin was about one-quarter of an inch
distant. Passing obliquely to the left, and forward through the upper
part of the body of the first lumbar vertebra, the bullet emerged by the
aperture, the centre of which was about half an inch to the left of the
median line, and which also involved the intervertebral cartilage next
above. The cancellated tissue of the body of the first lumbar vertebra
was very much comminuted, and the fragments somewhat displaced. Several
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