Harmony Among the President’s Surgeons

One of the sensational papers in this city has been endeavoring to make out that continual bickerings disgraced the surgeons who were in attendance upon President McKinley. The charges, receiving at first no notice from the victims of the journal’s mendacity, became finally so malignant that the gentlemen attacked were forced to make a formal denial, and have issued the following statement: “The undersigned, surgeons and physicians, who were in attendance on the late President McKinley, have had their attention called to certain sensational statements recently published in the daily papers, and particularly in one New York paper, indicating dissention [sic] and mutual recrimination among them. We desire to say to the press and the public, once for all, that every such publication and alleged interview with any of us containing criticism of one another or of any of our associates, is false and is nothing but scandal mongering. We say again that there was never a serious disagreement among the professional attendants as to any of the symptoms or as to treatment of the case, or as to bulletins which were issued. A very unusual harmony of opinion and of action prevailed all through the case. The unfortunate result could not have been foreseen before the unfavorable symptoms declared themselves late on the sixth day, and could not have been prevented by any human agency. Pending the completion and publication of the official reports of the post-mortem examiners and of the attending staff, we shall refuse to make any further statements for publication, and alleged interviews with any of us may be known to be fictitious. (Signed), Matthew D. Mann, Roswell Park, Herman Mynter, Eugene Wasdin, Charles G. Stockton.”