The Evening critic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1881-1885, 1881-09-16

THE CASE OF THE President presents
some curious anomalies in medical science.
We make this observation in preference to
saying that the eminent surgeons who have
charge of the case arc displaying some queer
methods of practice. The alternative is
painfully apparent; and we prefer to as
cribe the phenomena to freak of nature,
than to accuse the eminent surgeons in
charge of deliberate deception and misrep-
rcsentation. Medical science is by no means |
an exact ono-likc mathematics, for ex-
ample but in our day and age ut least the |
physical laws of human nature have been
ascertaincd and determined to point which
invests any considerable departure from
them with character little short of the
miraculous Among the laws of medical
science perhaps the most exact is that of
the relation of symptom to disease. On this
point the experience Of centuries has been
cumulative, without material break in the
thread of evidence, and it is fair to say
that upon it the whole structure of modern
therapeutics is based. Diagnosis is the
parent of all intelligent treatment and the
infallible relation of symptom to disease is
the foundation of diagnosis.
These may be termed fundamental
truisms of medical science, or the maxims
of pathology. In any ordinary case the
physician who should disregard tkem would
be banned from respectable practice as a
quack or an empiric, and his bulletins
secuted as absurd by all respectable prac-
titioners. But the Presidents case is not an
ordinary one. On the contrary it is in
every respect extraordinary; and the fact
that General Garfield is President of the
United States wholly alters tho operation
Of the commonly received and recognized
laws of medical science SO far as his particu-
lar ailment is concerned.
We have yet to find trained surgeon or
a learned physician, except those immedi-
ately in charge of the case, who does not
pronounce the Presidents condition, from
the plainest and most unavoidable reading
of the symptoms, pyemia. This may be
said to be tho unanimous verdict of the
medical and surgical profession, not only of
the United States, but Of the civilized
world-save and except the three particu-
larly eminent physicians and surgeons who
sign the bulletins, to wit: d. w. Bliss,
Frank II. Hamilton, and d. Hayes Agnew.
This is the 10th day of September The
President was shot on the 2d day of July.
From the 2d day of July until about the
11th day Of August the wound was passing
through the various stages of shock, inflam.
nation, suppuration, and granulation, the
grand cause of disturbance-the bullet
remaining in statm quo. On OF about
the 1lth day Of August, symptoms began to
manifest themselves, which, if occurring in
any other patient than the President of the
United States, would have been translated
by any intelligent physician as evidence that
feculent matter had been absorbed
into the blood from inaccessible
portions of the wound cavity,
producing pyemia Such was the transla-
tion given to these symptoms by the entire
medical profession, save and excepting the
three dominating medical minds of the
corps in immediate charge of the case, to
wit: Bliss, Hamilton, and Agnew. These
symptoms, but denied their pathological
significance, so far as this particular case
was concerned. The old maxim that the
king can do no wrong was in this instance
paraphrased into the new maxim that sick
President cannot be judged by the laws OF
pathology.
Well, ON or about the 18th of August the
symptoms Of pyemia aforesaid eliminated
in a so-called relapse, so desperate that even
the three heroic surgeons in charge gave uI
the case for n space of twenty-four hours,
the Secretary of State echoed their despair
in his official dispatches designed for the
information of the Courts of Europe, and
everybody waited in sorrow for the final
moment. But the President rallied until,
on the oath Of August, his surgeons
and attendants took heart enough to renew
their customary promulgati of phenome-
nal bulletins; since which time-no other
pronounced relapse having occurred-thc
phenomenal character of the bulletins has
been sustained But this sort of thing can
not last always. The President is either
afflicted with pyiemia, as all his symptoms
indicate-judged according TO the ordinary
laws Of pathology-or he is not afflicted
with pyemia, as all the bulletins of Bliss,
Hamilton and Agnew indicate judged by
the new and phenomenal laws established
by Bliss, Hamilton and Agnew. Py@mia
is not infallibly fatal. 1t is usually so (;
but by no means without exception. But
racovarv from IL ia invariably alow t0rtli-