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     Doctor Carney’s inquiry regarding the “alien” nurse is the third of the kind we have received. In the other two there is no doubt as to the intent; in this case we are uncertain whether the writer considered our remarks were supposed to convey the impression that the nurse was not an American, but are compelled to accept this interpretation. What we intended to convey was, that the nurse was imported from another city; she was alien only as regards the city of Buffalo. She was imported, not by request of Doctor Mann, but by a Washington physician from his own city, and we can only believe that Doctors Mann, Park, and others, acquiesced in this move simply to avoid any evidence of disagreement among those in attendance. We, perhaps, made unhappy choice of the word “alien” in lieu of some other synonym: but the Century Dictionary among other definitions gives:

     Not having rights of citizenship in such place of residence!

     This, as explained elsewhere, was the sense in which the term was employed; and the nurse in question, we believe, at the time the editorial was penned, to have been native to Ohio.
     Regarding Doctor Carney’s second query, we are unable to advance anything of satisfactory nature. The case cited by him as appearing in the “Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion,” appears to be the only one extant—at least so far as we can discover. Now attention is particularly called to it, we can only evince surprise at the paucity of all literature bearing upon the supra-renal capsule. Evidently the medical men in attendance upon President McKinley placed little stress upon this lesion, as it does not appear in the death certificate. We would also like some explanation of how the bullet perforated “both walls of the stomach and the head of the pancreas,” and at the same time “shattered the head of the kidney.” Like Doctor Carney we await, with some curiosity and eagerness the official and authoritative report.—Ed.