Gillson could reach his bedside he fell back
stone dead. (Signed) X. V. Adams.
The testimony of Adams corroborated in every particular that of his wife
and daughter, but set forth more fully the particulars of his demoniac
ravings. He would taste nothing from a glass or bottle, but shuddered
whenever any article of that sort met his eyes. In fact, they had to
remove from the room the cups, tumblers, and even the castors. At times
he spoke rationally, but after the second day only in momentary flashes
of sanity.
The deposition of the attending physician, after giving the general
facts with regard to the sickness of the patient and his subsequent
demise, proceeded thus:
I found the patient weak, and suffering from loss of blood and rest, and
want of nourishment; occasionally sane, but for the most part flighty
and in a comatose condition. The wound was an ordinary gunshot wound,
produced most probably by the ball of a navy revolver, fired at the
distance of ten paces. It entered the back near the left clavicle,
beneath the scapula, close to the vertebrae between the intercostal
spaces of the fifth and sixth ribs; grazing the pericardium it traversed
the mediastinum, barely touching the oesophagus, and vena azygos, but
completely severing the thoracic duct, and lodging in the xiphoid
portion of the sternum. Necessarily fatal, there was no reason, however,
why the patient could not linger for a week or more; but it is no less
certain that from the effect of the wound he ultimately died.
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