The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-08-19
MISCELLANEOUS.
philadelphia Pressl
Newspaper Surgery.

The presumption with which certain news
judgment on the treatment of the Presidents
case by the physicians in charge would be ri
diculous if it were not actually harmful. The
whole country is watching the varying condi-
ton of the! president with anxious, painful
suspense, and while the sbetter-informed smile
at the calm assumption. of superior insight and
the pretentious display Of technical knowledge
exhibited by these Journalists, a great
many worthy people have their anxiety deep
ened and their fears intensified by reading the
oft-repeated intimation that the President has
not fallen into capable hands.
We hear no complaints Of the trea tment
which the President is receiving except from
omniscient editors who have diagnosed the case
by gaslight two or three hundred miles distant
from their patient. The physicians in charge
are all men of large experience, and two of
them are recognized as standing at the very
head of their profession. For their reputation s
sake if for no higher motive, it is fair to pre-
sumo that they give their highest skill and
best work to the case they have now in hand.
The noble wife of the President, his dearest
friends present in Washington, the members
of his Cabinet, personally interested in his re-
covery, and all who have opportunity to judge
from observation Of the Presidents condition
and the character of his treatment, show no
want of confidence in his physicians or DISPOSE
ton to criticize their treatment of his case.
Surel y their Judgment is not inferior to that OF
these self-appointed newspaper critics, and
their means Of forming correct opinion are
infinitely better. 1t would be the extreme of
arrogance even for trained physicians to set up
their judgment, based on the bulletins, in OPP
position to that of the surgeons, founded on
self. For laymen to assume to belittle the
skill Of Drs. Agnew, Hamilton, Bliss and the
rest, to critcise their treatment of the case and
ridicule their opinion as to the character of
the wound, is an exhibition of self sufficiency
fortunately not often met with, butnot the less
repugnant when it does appear.
No one denies that the President is very
sick man; that he will certainly recover no one
can assert. If 1t were not that he is entirely
out of reach of the intermeddling propensities
of newspaper quacks his case would be indeed
hopeless. The latest reports of his condition
are extremely unfavorabe, and it is possible
that, in spite of his skilled physicians, his
strong constitution, and all the aid and care
that love can suggest, science afford. or money
procure, he will be taken away. For six
weeks and a half the whole nation has been
reading with anxious soiicitude the bulletins
which told of tho Presidents painful struggle
between life and death. To tell the people
that the mem whose names are subscribed to
these bulletins are aggravating simple case
by their Incompetence and endangering the
life of the President by their ignorant expert
ments is to render the President service
and increase the anxiety and fear of the peo-
are incompetent, unjust and wholly mischiev-