[?] Case of President McKinley

     The assassination of President McKinley plunged the whole nation into [gloom?] and evoked expressions of deepest sorrow from all parts of the civil[ized?] world. No words of ours can add effect to what has already been written and spoken in condemnation of the atrocious crime and in detestation of the despicable and idiotic tenets—they cannot be dignified by the word principles—which [?]ired it, as well as of the miserable, misguided wretch who fired the shots.
     The nature of the late President’s wound, the skillful operation which [?]ptly followed, the subsequent care of the case, and the collapse preced[?] the fatal termination, as well as the findings at the autopsy, have all [?] exhaustively discussed, not only in the daily papers, but also in the [?]g medical weeklies.
     [?] must be a source of satisfaction to every physician with pride in his [633][634] profession, that, in spite of much criticism of certain features of the case, all the evidence goes to show that death was inevitable from the beginning and that, considering the character of the injuries and the distinguished patient’s age and impaired vigor, the lethal result could not have been averted.
     We have nothing to say of the admirable work of the eminent and gifted surgeons who bore the whole burden of the case, except to award them unstinted praise for what was accomplished by them under trying conditions; but we think it would have been a wise precaution, under all the circumstances, if Dr. Mann, who is said to have had the selection of his coadjutors and consultants, had retained in the case all the way through the able internalist and experienced gastroenterologist, Dr. Stockton, of Buffalo, who was among the first physicians summoned, but was then allowed to drop out, until recalled just at the last. In the absence from the consultations of any physician eminent in internal medicine, there would have been a storm of criticism from the lay press, if the autopsy had chanced to reveal any accidents or shortcomings having a relation to the feeding or management otherwise of the medical side of the case.
     Generally speaking, it is self-evident that if the fields of internal medicine and surgery have grown to be so extensive and so complicated, as they have, that no one man, however gifted, can do the best work in both, then surgeons have quite as much need to call in medical men to deal with purely medical questions, as physicians have to call in the aid of surgeons for surgical complications.