The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1909-01-14
Washington, Garfield, Mckinley,
HiuSfYiONS Victims of Surgery.


publish the following communication:
You tell into an error as to Mckinley how
ever. This was what happened: He was
wounded severely, but not past hope. An OPP
Grafton was necessary, not to get the bullet
lit doesn't make any difference about the bull
let-lt's the holes it makes which do the dam
age, not the remaining in the economy of bit
OF lead), but the operation could as we'll have
been done some hours later as not. There was
big city, with every equipment for absolutely
sterile surgery. In kind of panic, because he
was the President, they did to him what they
would not have done to a dog upon which an
experiment was to be tried: Went into the alb
domen with inadequate instruments. The lack
of preparation, the waiting while the man lay
on the table, the exposure of vital organs to
prolonged shock-THAT is what killed Nc
k1nley. Surgeons who know the facts are
transfxed with horror at what was done IF
there had been emergency, if there had been
no better way, it would have been excusable
but under the circumstances the only charita-
bic thing to say is that the doctors were SIM
ply overwhelmed, lost their heads and blum
dered IN way almost past belief. A cool
headed surgeon who was no respecter of per-
sons, who would calmly have proceeded to
make decent preparations for the job before
him, would in all probability, have pulled Nc
Kinley through His wound was one that
for instance, as those sustained by J. ]. Flynt
Of the Georgia Legislature, some years ago
You doubtless recall it.
"Of course, you could not have known about
the Mckinley blunder but it is one of the pro-
fessons horrible examples"
The point made in the editorial to which the
writer of the above refers, was that the sur
geons who attended President Garfield during
his prolonged agony found Congress most re-
luctant to violate the Constitution by appro-
priatlng money for the payment of bills against
the Garfield estate Whereas in the case of
Mckinley who died soon after being shot, the
surgeons had no difficulty in collecting from
the Government the large sums which they
claimed.
The difference in the conduct of Congress,
dealing with two cases precisely alike, illus
trates the terrible danger of bad precedent
Mr.. Jefferson used to emphasize the advice
Resist the beginnings" In paying the Gar
field surgeons, Congress went outside the au-
thority delegated by the Constitution But the
bad beginning having been made, it was easy
to repeat the performance, 1t was precedent
and to some people precedent is a good
enough reason.
If Mckinley was a victim of the surgeons
and the writer of the letter quoted leaves us
in no doubt about it-he was the third Ameri-
can President to succumb to the knife
DR.. John H. Girdner of New York was
partner of DR.. Hamilton and accompanied that
great surgeon on his flying trip to Washing
ton when Garfield was shot. Dr. Girdner was
present at the examination and at the consulta-
ton. He declares that the surgeons got ex-
cited and lost a case which ought to
have been saved. eff Garfield had not been
President but inst common hackman or