The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-09-23

her little daughter Molie Mrs. Garfield had
nerved herself for the end, which she had for
some hours dreaded as inevitable. She went
at once to the side of her dying husband and
took his hand in hers. The President was
helpless and speechless, but, as his wife sat
down by him. he turned his face toward hers
slightly and fixed his eyes upon his Wifes, and
SO he sank into Inconsistencies, his eyes still
bent on her face With one hand she held
Der husbands, and her other hand lay on his
heart. There was no word uttered. Drs. Ag-
new and Bliss stood by the bedside. Mollie re-
SstraIning her sobs, was at her mothers side.
The watchers and attendants stood by, and DR..
Boypton sat at the Presidents head tanning
him. The pulse became entirely Inperoeptible.
The applications which had been brought to be
applied as restoratives lay untouched Theend
was plainly at hand. When another minute
had come the great-hearted man was dead.
and lay free from pain and strife His
eyes were open but vacant, the pupils still bent
on the face of the stricken wife. Broken
hearted Mollie turned and sobbed. The
effort with which Mrs. Garfield herself kept
back her tears was seen In the fixed lines of the
face as she arose and went from the room. At
the door of her chamber she broke quite down.
For the first time she sobbed aloud, and in this
first burst of grief she shut herself alone in her
chamber. She remained thus alone for perhaps
three minutes, and what new strength she got
in the brief communion was seen in her brave
and resolute face as she came back to the bed
where her dead husband lay. DR.. Hamilton,
with WOman's gentleness, had closed the
eyelids. Mrs. Garfield, soon by the bed took
Z up the lifeless hand that had held her heart,
and there she sat for nearly three hours. Drs,
Agnew and Boynton and Gen. Swain remained
3 in the room for some time until, at last, Secre-
tary Brown and Warren Young alone were lett
Z TO keep the vigil till daybreak. Nothing was
ever more pathetic than the peaceful death of
! the once strong mantle passing away of a
nations leader, his helpless hand lying in his
wife's, to whom he was ever more than Presi-
dent.
The AutOpSy-ItS Strange Develop
mentS.
The autopsy is the most marvellous feature
in the Presidents case. 1t shows that the
surgeons had absolutely no knowledge of the
character of the wound or the location of the
ball. What was called "the track of the
wound was in fact, burrowing pus cavity.
The catheter, that was following the track
A of supposed tortuous wound, was be-
ing pushed into a pus cavity. The ball
which DR.. Hamilton, even, thought he
could locate within half an inch
proved to be a mere ball of pus walled up.
The metal which the induction balance discoY-
cred was the same accumulation of puS. The
doctors all knew within an inch where the ball
was, and could have reached it Immediately
with knife. Yet it was two feet, by the sur
face of the body, from where thcy thought it
was, and behind the heart, instead of being in
front of the groin. The ball never went down
ward and forward It went sideways across
the backbone. The shattered rib, which was
not known to the consulting surgeons
until July %, was the obstacle which DETECTED
The bullet, and caused it to locate where no one
ever suspected that it was, and where it re.
manned, a permanent danger to the heart.
The doctors, however, congratulate themselves
chat the lung was not seriously affected-that
\ there was no metastatic abscess. The case
h illustrates how great the skill of good
nursing is, for it shows that the Pres
dent was kept alive for eighty days
olely by good nursing, while he had
y mortal wound that was constantly
,oisoning the system. But the autopsy shows
low greatly the most eminent surgeons lnay
rr-plainly spoken, that the doctors knew very
4 title about the wound or the course
{ the ball. The post norton was made
he day after death, III the presence and with
ne assistance of Drs. Hamilton, Agnew, Bliss,
arnes, Woodward Reyburn, Andrew H. Smith,
Lamb, of the Army Medical Museum of. Wash.
ngton. The operation was performed by DR..
amb The physicians, i'll their official report
: Of the autopsy, say:
cit was found that the ball, after fracturng
/ the right eleventh rib, had passed through the
spinal column, in front of the spinal canal,
/ lracturing the body of the first lumbar ver-
Zebra, driving number of small fragments OF
y bone into the adjacent soft parts, ard lodging
lust below the pancreas, about two inches and
a half to the left of the spine, and behind the
speritoneum, where it had become completely
& encysted. fa ea..~.s....- stH
"The immediate cause of death was secon-
4 dairy hemorrhage from one of the mesen-
teric arteries adjoining the track of the ball. the
{ blood rupturing the perltoneum and nearly q
spint escaping into the abdominal cavity
E'This hemorrhage is believed to have been
4 the cause of the severe pain in the lower part
of the chest complained of just before death.
can abscess cavity, six inches by four. in di-
mansions, was found in the vicinity of the gall
4 bladder, between the liver and the transverse
scolon, which were strongly interadherent. 1t
i did not involve the substance of the liver, and
Sno communication was found between 1t and
1.-THE wound.
sAlong the suppuration channel extended
from the external wound between the loln
muscles and the right kidney almost to the
fright groin. This channel is now known to be
due to the burrowing of the pus from the
wound It was supposed during life to have
4 been the track of the ball. ai5 .fF.-
"On examination of the organs of the chest
evidences of severe bronchitis were found on
/ both sides, with broncho-pneumonia Of the
Hover portions of the right lung, and, though
to much less extent, of the left rs
''The lungs contained no assesses and the
heart no clots.
"The liver was enlarged and fatty, but free
from assesses, nor were any found in any
other organ except the left kidney, which con
famed, near its surface. small abscess about
sone-third of an inch in diameter.
"1n reviewing the history of this case, in
connection with the autopsy. it is quite evil
/ dent that the different suppurating surfaces,
and especially the fractured spongy tissue of
5the vertebra, furnish sufficient explanation of
the septic condition which existed"