The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-04-25
HIGH-ToNED oUACKs.

It is vet fresh and vivid in the minds
of the people how those famous bulletins
used to be sent out from the bedside OF
President Garfield Most of them were
full of hope and promise; some OF them
went largely into detail, and described
the exact condition of the patient, ex-
planning how it was highly improbable
that he would die. Now and then
would come along bulletin indicating
little weakness and waVering on the
part of the surgeons, but this would be
followed by a more cheerful statement
of the case, the gloomy bulletins being in
iected merely to disturb the monotony of
all favorable reports. So much pretended
knowledge of the human system was
rarely if ever displayed as in that case
Carrying out the spirit of the bulletins,
New York journal, the day after the
death of Garfield, printed bulletin
signed by Bliss, which ran about as fol-
lows:
"The President died last night. With
this exception his condition remains I'M
changed"
The postmortem examination deyel-
Oped the fact that the surgeons and
physicians knew little or nothing of the
true nature of the wound that they had
been treating. They did not even know
the direction the bullet had taken, but
had punched holes where it might have
gone, and thereafter probed these regu-
larly in the vain hope of finding the
bullet. Garfeld's wound was
necessarily mortal, and in the regular
course of events the man died, despite
the fact that the doctors persisted in
saying he would get well. and despite
all that could be done for him.
During the past three or four weeks
the people have been wrought up to
pitch of deep anxiety and even sorrow
over General Grant. Thousands have
gone to sleep at night, confidently ex-
pecting to read of the Generals death
in the morning papers. Newspaper
offices have been prepared TO issue extras
announcing the death of the old
soldier. The nation has unitedly
mourned him as dead, and its grief was
made mere poignant by the conscious
ness that the victim fingered along
hour after hour, only to suffer, his re-
covery being among the probabilities.
The attending doctors, answering the
popular demand, issued hourly bulletins,
humanely informing the weeping mil
lions that there was no hope. Now
death was only a matter of hours. then
life might be prolonged day or two.
This strain was maintained for fully
two weeks, when all at once General
Grant turned to writing his own bull
ietins, went out driving and walking,
and began making arrangements for
spending the summer at some fashion
able resort where he can enjoy himself.
He seems good for many years yet, and
the nation rejolces.. And all this
in the face OF the declarations
of the doctors that he could
not get well.
In the case of Garfield, the eminent
surgeons refused to admit that it was
probable he would die; in that of Grant
eminent doctors give up all hope of
his recovery. In the lower walks of
life such circumstances and incidents
are occurring every day, but these two
cases, because of their prominence,
must SET the human family to thinking
there is yet much gross ignorance IN
the profession of medicine and surgery,
and that the most famous doctors are.
not above indulging in empiricism.
If Garfield had recovered, Bliss
and associates would have been
famed as most learned and skiilful
physicians and surgeons; but he died,
and three-fourths of the intelligent
people to-day regard Garfield's doctors
as downright quacks. Had Grant died
rs it was said he would do, Drs. Doug
las. Snrady and fellows might have
maintained the reputation of knowing
something. disease; as the General is
fast getting we'll, must not his attending
physicians feel that they are very much
overrated in the matter of professional
skill and knowledge. and that they are
little better than quacks?