WILLIAM WITEAKER

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
SURNAME:Witeaker also recorded as Whitaker and Whittaker
FORENAMES:William
BORN:c1808
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ENLISTED:01 04 1831 Birmingham
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TROOP NO:Mar 1831: Depot Troop
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RANK:1831-1832: Private
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EMBARKATIONS:09 03 1832 Abercrombie Robinson England
DISEMBARKATIONS:21 06 1832 Abercrombie Robinson Bombay India
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DIED: 03 10 1832 India aged 24 years
See autopsy report below
BURIED:03 10 1832 Kirkee India.
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AUTOPSY REPORT: CASE No. 8. Dysentery
WILLIAM WHITAKER, Private, 4th Light Dragoons, AEt. 21; A recruit, two months in India. had bowel complaint at the Colaba depôt. Admitted into Hospital, 4th Dragoons, August 5th, 1832. Arrived that day from Bombay: had been affected with purging without pain, on the march. On the evening of the 4th, griping, straining, and some heat of skin. Abdomen on admission full, with some uneasiness on pressure in the course of the colon. Was bled, took calomel and opium, and castor-oil. On the 7th, stools feculent; no uneasiness of abdomen: continued complaining principally of debility till the 23rd August. His pulse for the most part frequent; skin hot and dry; tongue moist and often quite clean, there was sometimes a remission in the course of the day, very often not; sometimes sweating during the night: the only symptom which might be considered at locating the disease was that the bowels were more acted upon by the medicines given than is usual, adn the report of the 17th was thus: continues as before, with hot skin; restless during the night. Several watery stools without pain, from blue pill and calomel and ipecacuanha, feculent, but with a few streaks of blood. From the 23rd to 31st, sweated much every night; no fever during the day. From 3rd September to 14th gradually gained strength, and on the latter was sent to the convalescent ward, where he remained a few days. It subsequently appeared that during the residence in the convalescent ward there had been uneasiness of the bowels, of which he did not complain at the time.
re-admitted September 22nd, stating that for the last three days he had purging and other dysenteric symptoms. It would be tedious to detail the symptoms and treatment. The disease pursued an unmitigated course, with very much the same symptoms as No. 7 [Henry Green]; there was never much complaint of pain. He died on the evening of the 3rd October. Treatment: free V. S. and leeching, blisters, calomel and opium and friction; no salivation on the day of his death. Evacuations grumous, bloody.
Inspection, nine hours after death. No distension of abdomen; liver enlarged, occupied the epigastrium adn part of left hypochondre. teh enlargement was chiefly of the right lobe. The stomach, pushed into the left hypochondre, left the duodenum previous to its doubling under the pancreas, uncovered by any viscus; parts of the pancreas were also opposed to the anterior parietes. The omentum, greenish, vascular, extended into the pelvis, embraced closely the bowels, but did not form any adhesions. The intestines had a greenish tint; the colon had not lost its cells; the transverse colon somewhat contracted; the large intestines felt firm adn hard on pressure. The transverse colon, at its commencement doubled down, was for a short distance bound closely by old bands of adhesion, to the left side of the upper part of the ascending colon: thus there was a sharp angle in the course of the bowel. With this exception, no adhesions; the sigmoid flexure of the colon was in the pelvis, interposed between the rectum and the body and fundus of the bladder; vessels of the mesentery, also those of the serous lining of the pelvis somewhat turgid. The stomach contained green watery fluid; a large patch of the mucous coat at the cardiac extremity, mottled red; the red points, the arborescent terminations of vessels; there was perhaps some softening at this part. The small intestines were opened throughout their whole extent. Contents of the ileum and end of jejunum dark-green, consistent, tenacious. On washing this off from the surface, the ileum displayed an olive-green tint, with minute granular aspect, as if fine sand had been sprinkled over a moist surface. This opaque, minute, white or tinted green granular deposit entended throughout the whole course of the small intestines, with this variation that in the ileum, where the quantity of mucous adherent to the membrane was not great, the granules were applied immediately to the mucous surface, and stood out in very slight relief from it. The jejunum had a greyish tint, and there and at the end of the duodenum, where the secreted mucis was more abundant, the opaque granules formed a constituent of the secretion, were suspended in it, and with the back of a scalpel could be scraped along with the mucus from the surface of the membrane. In the ileum there were some abraded portions, and occasionally a greater than natural softness of the mucous tunic. In the jejunum were some honey-combed patches running at right angles to the valculae conniventes, an appearance, as if a more intimate adhesion had taken place between the mucous and muscular tunics, and caused a slight puckering at those sites. No redness in any part of the mucous tunic of the small intestines.
The colon, principally the ascending, and the coecum, contained much dark-red grumous, tenacious matter, to remove the tint of which from the inner surface of the bowel required much washing; throughout the whole course of the large bowels many and irregular ulcerations. In the coecum and ascending colon there were ridges left with a mucous surface; these ridges ran transversely, their centres frequently excavated by ulcerations following the course of the ridges. The bottom of the portions between the ridges generally consisted of the muscular coat. The cellular tissue in the ridges thickened. This portion of the corcum and ascending colon when floated in water shewed long irregular, tender, thin membranous films attached the to ulcerated sides and centres of the ridges, thus giving to the bowel when floated a flocculent appearance. In the transverse colon some distinct round ulcers, having the muscular coat for their bottom, at their edges the mucus tunic thickened. In the transverse and descending colon there were patches of gray mucous tunic, softened, not otherwise disorganized; there were also large portions where all appearance of mucous coat had disappeared; nothing but patches of exposed grayish muscular fibre, with white shreds loosely adherent to it: this was most remarkable at the... [two pages missing in source] ... raised up, the black dots were carried along with it.'
TNA SOURCES:WO/12/641-642
BL SOURCES:IOR/N/3/10
OTHER SOURCES:Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, Vol. 7, 1835
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4th Light Dragoons Index

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