June 30.—We get very little in the way of chickens, eggs, etc. The fact is, the government gives us no money to buy any thing with, which is very annoying.
Mrs. Dr. Pierce has sent a bottle of lotion for the use of the patients in cases of inflammation. As usual, the surgeons paid little or no attention to it, as it had been made by a lady. I found one of the patients suffering very much from a carbuncle. Dr. Wellford had been doing his best to get it ready for lancing. The head nurse said that Dr. W. told him to try any thing he pleased, as he was tired of trying things himself. I got him to try the lotion, and by next morning the carbuncle was ready for lancing, and the man had a good night’s sleep, the first he had had in a long time. This is a cause of triumph for us ladies. Dr. W. is much pleased with the lotion, and is anxious to get more.
A young man has died lately, who was wounded in the arm and in the head at the battle of Chickamauga. A minie- ball entered at the inner corner of one eye and made its exit at the temple of the opposite side. He was in a critical condition for several months. His wound in the arm healed, and that in the temple, near his eye, also healed; the other closed, with the exception of a slight aperture, from which a discharge kept up, the left side of the forehead being swollen all the lime. The young man walked about for weeks, looking very well and cheerful, though he often complained of dull pain in his head. He was at length taken suddenly ill, and became insensible. The surgeons thought he was suffering under compression of the brain. A consultation was held, and it was decided that the only chance to save his life was to trephine. The operation was performed, I think, by Surgeon Pim, medical inspector. It proved unsuccessful, and the poor fellow never rallied—lived a day or two in a state of insensibility, and then breathed his last. The post-mortem examination proved that the inner skull was seriously fractured, so much so as to make it evident that a fatal issue was inevitable. This young man lay for months in bed, with a bandage over both eyes, and seemed to suffer very little. I never saw him without a smile on his countenance.
