Marion F. Ardrey, 24th., Iowa Infantry.

Marion F. Ardrey, Medical History & Autopsy.

From the Surgeon General Files.

Private Marion Ardrey, company D, 24th Iowa volunteers; age 18; admitted January 2, 1865. Chronic diarrhoea. [This man appears on the register of the depot field hospital, Winchester, Virginia, as admitted from his regiment January 1st diarrhoea sent to general hospital January 2d.] Was first seen by the reporter January 18th; he was then much emaciated, but his appetite was fair, and he appeared to digest his food pretty well. He complains of slight diarrhoea, and has two or three evacuations daily ; these are frequently large and thin, but not attended with pain. The abdomen is fiat, and there is no tenderness on pressure.

Ordered three grains of sulphate of quinia and a wineglassful of infusion of calumbo three times a day ; opium and astringents for the diarrhoea. January 22d : Condition about the same, the diarrhoea perhaps somewhat better ; the patient is walking around the barrack, but complains of slight difficulty in using his lower extremities. January 24th : The diarrhoea is still improving, but the patient has still less control of his lower limbs, and is scarcely able to stand. He was advised to go to bed. At half-past nine in the evening he complained of intense pain in the abdomen, for which a dose of morphia was administered.

He died next morning, January 25th, at 7.30. Autopsy four hours after death : Body much emaciated. The brain was not examined. The mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes was inflamed and thickened, but both lungs were crcpitant throughout. The pericardium contained an ounce of limpid serum. The heart was quite small. The liver was normal ; the gall-bladder much distended with thin light-colored bile. The spleen was congested. The kidneys were large but healthy. In the ileum Peyer s patches were extensively diseased, and many of them were in an advanced state of ulceration ; the solitary glands were also ulcerated. The mucous membrane of the transverse and descending colon was much inflamed, and ulcerated at numerous points. Acting Assistant Surgeon Wm. S. Adams.