Discussion of the Papers of Drs. Guerry, Ransohoff, and Coffey [excerpt]

     DR. ROSWELL PARK, of Buffalo.—I wish to refer briefly to the tragic event which occurred at Buffalo a number of years ago. Of course you are all familiar with the case of President McKinley, who was shot, and in which I was more or less concerned. This is the first time I have referred to that case in any public place.
     The remarks of Dr. Bloodgood have prompted me to say this, that at the autopsy on President McKinley there were certain revelations which we had not been led to expect. There was a tremendous amount of interest taken in his case, as you all remember, and after the conclusion of the autopsy I and others were besieged by newspaper reporters for all the information we could give them, and all the explanations which we could furnish. In some respects the findings were unexpected. It was at a time when we did not know much about the surgery of the pancreas, or diseased condition of that organ, or the relation of one to the other. In seeking an explanation for the peculiar necrosis which we found in this [150][151] case, it was my suggestion, based on the very meagre amount of information which we all of us possessed at that time, that in all probability the wound of the pancreas in his case had to do with the subsequent course of events. I really believe now it had much to do with it, although it had not been discussed at the autopsy. The suggestion was taken up later, and made the basis of a large amount of experimentation by our own pathologist in Buffalo, Professor Herbert Williams, and many others, and that unfortunate instance, I think, attracted surgical attention to this matter in a way nothing else perhaps would have done had it not occurred. That is a little bit of history which it is not too early now to put on record.