The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-15
THE STORY OF THE
 POISONED BULLET

| Puffalo. Sept. A-Immediately after President Mckinley had been shot, ru-
 mors were rife that, acting under a general order of anarchy, the assassin had probably poisoned the bullets. The | early days of splendid improvement in
 the patients condition dispelled these | rrmors. but they were renewed when | the final collapse began This morning | they found their way into the autopsy l room and when the gangrenous condi-
 tion of the tissues in the course of the had as to whether or not the assassin | had used poison to make more complete his deadly work.
 | The theory of Doctor Eugene wasdin, | an expert in yellow fever cases. and
 who is familiar with the action of pois-
 ons in the human body. as ito the pois- | onous matter upon the bullet, are here l with given:
 l The breast-bone wound showed a big
 impact. Still, the area of infiltration of
 sub-cutaneous tissues was entirely too extensive to be accounted for by contu-
 sion or the force of the bullet The sub
 cutaneous tissues we're in a partially went into the abdomen and penetrated l the stomach also was followed by exten- | slve necrosis of tissue or gangrene wherever 1t passed. The skin wound at the point of entrance was gangrenous, and this process extended to the entire | line of invasion made by the surgeons | through the abdominal wall The point
 of entrance into the stomach was nee rosie or gangrenous. The sutures made
 by. the surgeons were still intact at the l autopsy. but the lines of sutures were surrounded by 8 necrotic area through the entire thickness of the stomach wall and extending on all sides about one Is true of the wounds of exit of the bull let on the posterior wall of the stom- acn which was also still closed by su- lures. in the centre of an extensive area of necrosis. The further passage of the bullet through the soft tissues of the 8nTFOlln0Rn nnRFnffa These different necrotic areas all had the same appearance as to time of dura- influence acting about the same time. All these conditions lead me to believe that there has been an influence exerted oy the passage of the bullet through the tissues entirely dissimilar to the infiu- ence exerted by an ordinary missile. In this case there were not the appearance Of single effort at natural repair at any point along the track of the ball
 The influence I speak of might be either bacterial, the microbe being car rled on the bullet and giving rise to cavity with resulting peritonitis and pos sible abscess or in the case of some rare germs. to necrosis of tissues. From bacteriological observations made thus far this does not seem to be the case There was no peritonitis or pus formation at any point within the abdominal cavity: only the g'.ngrenous influence from the bullet. which from these facts, I believe to have been due to some possible organic poison placed on the bullet. Further bacteriological tests are in progress. and possibly a germ capable of giving rise to this gangrenous condition of tissues may be found. But the presence of gan grene only at points of passage of the | bullet and the length of time (seven days) | required for the necrotic or gangrenous | condition rather convince me that 1t is | not bacteria influence. but must be due | to organic poison.
 Tests were made of gangrenous mat | ter when the stitches in the Presidents l wound were removed and the wound re- | dressed. They have no shown as yet | the presence of a gangrene producing | organism-leading inferentially to the | opinion that the bullet was coated with | poisonous substance"
 pr. Roswell Park Is response to ques- tions said: "I fail to subscribe to the | theory that the bullet was poisoned for | the simple reason that I have often seen | bullet wounds similar to those which re- suited in the Presidents death in cases | where no question of poisoned bullets were raised.
 Dr. Hermann Mynter, another of the physicians who was in attendance upon the President. ridiculed the idea that the