CASES AND PATIENTS.--MARTIN DILGER.--HEAVY LOSSES.--FRENCH IRRELIGION
CONTRASTED WITH GERMAN PIETY.
As it is my object to exclude as much as possible professional details
of my labours at the bedside, description of wounds, and the like, I
shall again merely mention particulars of a few cases, in order to give
my reader a general idea of the nature of the wounds received by
soldiers in battle.
Take No. 6, for instance, as I find it in my notes. It was a very bad
case. A German soldier of the Line had received a bullet wound behind
and below the calf of his leg, which passed up, without touching the
bone, behind his knee joint, beneath the muscles of the thigh to the
joint of the hip. Having pursued this most extraordinary course, it
lodged so deep beneath the muscles that neither the German doctors nor
ourselves, to whom the case was handed over, could find the exact
position of the bullet; yet I laid open its track in four or five
places. Despite all treatment, he died eventually of blood-poisoning. On
making a post-mortem examination, I traced the bullet actually into the
abdomen, and still was unable to find it, although certain of its
general position. These particulars I mention to show the unaccountable
course a bullet may take after entering an extremity. There were dozens
of similar curious cases, for which this may suffice as an example.
In another instance the bullet, having entered the right thigh and
fractured the bone, carried along with it, impacted in its centre, a
splinter of this bone, and pieces of the tunic and lining, as well as of
trousers and shirt. It then entered the left thigh, lodging close to the
skin on the outer side, from which I extracted the different fragments
in the order just described.
By this time we had evacuated the large shed, which was now only
occupied by those who suffered from pyæmia, or blood-poisoning. All the
rest had comfortable quarters in different portions of the building; but
these unfortunates were doomed to remain in the shed, though exposed to
the biting frost and bleak winds of November. The simple reason was that
their presence under the same roof with their comrades would mean
certain death to all. When they had contracted this dread disease, which
they chiefly did by infection, their only chance,--and a poor one it
proved,--was to be placed in a current of fresh air. Hence their removal
to this shed was commonly but their first step to the deadhouse.
This plague of the Field Hospital made great havoc amongst our men
during the month of November in Orleans, as it had done at Sedan in
September. The only instance of recovery after it, which came under my
notice during the whole campaign, was that of the Bavarian named Martin
Dilger; and his was of a very bad type. His thigh had been amputated;
and, when the symptoms set in, I sent him out to the shed, where he
quickly became as bad as his comrades. I attended him several times
every day; but he speedily grew worse, until at last, his case seemed
more desperate than all the others. The soft parts sloughed, leaving the
thigh-bone protruding; while the patient was almost comatose, and had
that violent hiccough which is generally, in such cases, the forerunner
of death. Several of my fellow-surgeons, moved by feelings of humanity,
advised me not to put him to the useless pain and annoyance of dressing
his stump, since he was _in articulo mortis_, and his recovery beyond
the range of possibility. However, I resolved that while he lived, I
would do as much for him as possible; and I continued to dress his
wounds.
Dilger had prolonged and repeated rigors, followed by profuse
perspiration, and was generally of a bluish livid colour,--all symptoms
of most deadly omen. I gave him as much brandy as he could take, and
chloral every two hours, for the hiccough, which was so violent that it
shook not only his whole frame, but the bed on which he lay. Yet, in a
few days these rigors subsided; he opened his eyes, and became
conscious. In the face of such a decided improvement, I ventured the
opinion that he would recover. He was now taking immense quantities of
brandy, which was supplied from the stores, and broth which I had made
for him in the town. Under this treatment his wounds took on a healthy
action, his pulse and temperature came down, and rational speech
returned, instead of his low muttering delirium; my colleagues now
admitted that his recovery was possible. I suffered him to remain in the
shed, as I felt that his safety depended upon having him there. Some
suggested his removal into a warm comfortable room in the town. Indeed,
it was with difficulty that I turned a deaf ear to these suggestions,
and overcame my own inclinations, when, on going to visit him on a cold
November night, I heard the wind whistling through that goods store in
the most melancholy manner, and the rain coming pitter-patter through
the holes in the roof. Nevertheless, in this cave of Æolus he outlived
all the others, and found himself at last its sole occupant.
This was my first case of pyæmia at Orleans, but it was to be quickly
followed by many more. A Black Hussar, in the first-class waiting-room,
developed it in a most virulent form, and died in twenty-four hours.
That frightened me very much, and I trembled for the safety of the rest.
So I had my wards washed out with a strong solution of carbolic acid
immediately. What made me still more apprehensive was the awful fact
that, out of seventeen patients in a neighbouring ward, all hitherto
going on favourably, fourteen died in a very short time of this dreadful
scourge. In spite of my precautions, I found a few days subsequently
that one of my patients had severe rigors, followed by perspiration; and
bitter was my disappointment to see a case which had been going on
splendidly, almost even to complete success, suddenly turn to the bad in
a few hours. I had my man at once removed to the shed, and, as I well
remember, on a biting November night; but I had no choice. I would have
put him out on the road-side, rather than have allowed him to sow the
seeds of inevitable death amongst the rest of my patients.
The poor fellow had now plenty of company in his dismal quarters, for my
colleagues had sent just as many out there as I had.
Not three days afterwards, a bright, handsome, fair-haired lad of about
twenty, with a quick, piercing eye, and manly countenance, showed also
the dreaded premonitory symptoms. I said nothing to him, but asked the
Hospital sergeant to get two of his men and have him removed on a
stretcher to the deadhouse. Such I can only call the place from which
none that entered it came out alive, except in the single instance I
have quoted. Shall I ever forget the moment when the _infirmiers_ came,
and that poor young lad, looking me wistfully in the face, read his doom
in my silence? He knew what it meant. He had seen his comrades go, and
had learned their fate, which was so soon to be his own. A few days
later, I lost a fourth,--a good, pious fellow, who was continually
telling his beads. His name was Johann Krum, particulars of whose case
have been already given. He was a man that never smiled; and when I
discovered that he had left a wife and three children at home, I pitied
him greatly.
I am thankful to say that this was the last of my patients who succumbed
to pyæmia. Any others whom I lost died from shock, hemorrhage, or the
severity of their wounds.
The days went on, until we had reached the second week of November.
Skirmishes with the enemy,--that is to say, with the French, who were
advancing upon Orleans,--now became an everyday occurrence; and the
number of wounded that came straggling in meant a very considerable loss
to the Bavarians.
About this time, Dr. Pratt made a journey to Versailles, in quest of
stores and money, leaving Dr. Tilghman in command. Inspector-General
Nussbaum made several visits to our Hospital, and expressed himself
greatly pleased with the way in which it was conducted. The truth was
that nobody could teach our veteran Americans anything new in the
management of a Field Hospital. They had all served their time during
the four years of the American War, and under a system of military
medical organisation which, as all authorities acknowledge, they had
brought to perfection. This was the secret of the undoubtedly successful
career of our Ambulance. And I must not omit to observe that it was they
who introduced the anterior suspension splint for fractures and wounds
of the joints, which we were the means of having adopted in many of the
German Hospitals.
To turn for a moment, before the Germans evacuate Orleans, to a subject
on which their presence and behaviour often set me thinking. It was a
fine sight when the Bavarians heard Mass in the great Cathedral, to mark
them fully equipped in heavy marching order, as they stood in close
military array in every available portion of the church, with sabres
drawn, glittering helmets, and waving plumes. The officers, too, stood
with drawn swords during Mass; and at the Elevation they gave, in their
deep sonorous tones, the word to present arms. Altogether the spectacle,
though not calculated to inspire devotion, was most impressive.
The Bavarians are, as a rule, good Catholics, and large numbers of them
were to be seen at daily Mass, reading their prayers attentively, and
going up to receive Communion. In the Hospitals also, they showed the
same devout temper. Their Chaplains were zealous men, always at work
among them, sharing their fatigues, and seeing that they attended to
their religious duties. One of the infirmarians in the ward next to me,
a common soldier, was in Holy Orders, though not yet a priest; and a
more saintly young fellow I never met. He was light-hearted and merry,
had a pleasant word for every one, and fulfilled punctiliously the
duties devolving upon him as a soldier, and as a minister of religion.
In this matter, as in other things of less importance, the Bavarians
struck me as very unlike the French. When you saw a French soldier in
church (which was but seldom), he never seemed to utter a prayer. And I
feel bound to set down my experience, that so long as I was among them,
I never noticed a French soldier with a prayer-book; nor did I ever hear
one pray when dying. Others may have been more fortunate; but such was
the fact in my case, and I think it deplorable. But the average French
citizen appears to think nothing at all of religion.
Far otherwise was it with the Bavarians. And I have seen large numbers,
also, of the Prussians and North Germans, who belonged to the
Evangelical or other Churches, reading their prayer-books and their
Bibles in the Hospitals, and praying earnestly as a matter of course.
These manifestly had religious convictions; they served God with zeal
and courage according to their lights. But in France the decadence of
religion had been complete. No wonder, therefore, if she has fallen.
Such, indeed, was the judgment of Europe a few months later, when the
Commune, breaking out like a volcano, startled men from the Voltairean
lightness which, during too many years of frivolity and thoughtlessness,
had been the fashion. For a moment all were agreed in proclaiming the
necessity of a return to the beliefs and practices of their Christian
forefathers,--was it, perchance, too late?