502 



SCIENCE. 



wound were ruptured by the injecting pressure. 

 The autopsy should have been made before the 

 injection, and then we should have known whether 

 a heart-clot as an accompanying factor of death 

 from post-pyaemic exhaustion was present or not. 

 A physician might well blush for a profession, a 

 member of which could in the face of the criticism 

 waiting to hang on every expression that fell from his 

 lips, deliberately state that the President died of 

 " Neuralgia of the Heart." 



The primary cause of death was unquestionably 

 pyaemia. The attending surgeons persist in speaking 

 of septicaemia, and their apologist in the Medical 

 Record, Dr. Shrady, ably shields their diagnosis by 

 saying that strictly speaking there is no such thing as 

 pyaemia. It should be known, he claims, as metas- 

 tatic septicaemia. The attending surgeons knew and 

 know what is meant by pyaemia, and deliberately de- 

 nied, and still deny, that the condition passing under 

 that name existed. The abscess of the parotid 

 gland, the abscess in the kidneys, and the foci 

 in the lungs are stubborn facts ; but they do not ap- 

 pear to exist for those who seem interested in placing 

 their critics in the wrong. 



In the conclusion of the report it is stated : — 



"The surgeons assisting at the autopsy were unani- 

 mously of the opinion that, on reviewing the history 

 of the case in connection with the autopsy, it is quite 

 evident that the different suppurating surfaces, and 

 especially the fractured spongy tissue of the vertebra, 

 furnish a sufficient explanation of the septic conditions 

 which existed during life." 



This is admitted to be a correct inference by all 

 those competent to form an opinion. Probably many 

 will cavil at the term " especially " as destined to 

 make light of the responsibility involved in keeping 

 up that largest suppurating area in the President's 

 body, the fistulous tract. 



The lessons to be drawn from this surgical case, 

 and it must be borne in mind that just such a case is 

 reported as recovered in Dr. Hamilton's text book, 

 are the following : — 



i st. Experiments with projectiles on the dead body 

 do not constitute any guide applicable to given living 

 cases of gun-shot wound." 



2d. Surgeons will sin less by being bold in probing 

 and examining wounds, even when near the great cav- 

 ities of the body, than by being over-conservative and 

 taking chances. 



3d. With a constitution like that of Mr. Garfield, 

 almost any operative procedure would be preferable 

 to a conservatism which, through its efforts to keep 

 up a false tract, increases the fatal chances of pyaemia. 



Those interested in the mechanism of the impinge- 

 ment of projectiles, will scarcely credit the claim that 

 the bullet was deflected at its impinging point on the 



eleventh rib. A bullet which crushes through two 

 ribs, cuts clean through a vertebra, and penetrates 

 altogether over eight inches of bony, muscular and 

 fatty tissue in a straight line, and fired at so short a 

 range, can scarcely have been deflected by the very 

 rib it crushed to pieces. The simplest explanation of 

 its course is, that the assassin fired at the President 

 in a line directly continuous with the bullet track in 

 the latter's body. That is, he fired while the plane of 

 the President's back was oblique to the plane of the 

 mouth of the revolver. With this the account given 

 by the assassin himself, the coolest and most un- 

 moved witness of the deed, is in accord throughout. 



It should be recollected, what seems to have been 

 overlooked by most 'or all of those who have criticized 

 this case, that the relations of the parts into which the 

 bullet was fired, were altogether different at the time 

 of the assassination than when the autopsy was per- 

 formed. At that time large, fatty and muscular 

 masses had to be traversed by the ball, which, in 

 the course of the wasting process ensuing, had nearly 

 disappeared. 



It is unfortunate that the brain was not examined. 

 The continual delirious state of the sufferer suggests 

 some metastatic affection of that organ. Probably 

 the reason this organ was not examined was the de- 

 sire to a/oid disfigurement, but the brain can be re- 

 moved in even a bald person without the latter. 



It may be here urged that the early performance of 

 the autopsy should not have interfered with the sub- 

 sequent embalming. The embalming procedure re- 

 sorted to in the President's case was of the most 

 routine and imperfect character, and not remotely 

 comparable to the perfected processes employed by 

 the German and Italian anatomists and embalmers. 

 References to Our Diagram. Page 499. 



P. 



Pancreas. 



p. p. p. 



Peritoneal cavity, the contained intestines and 



omental masses omitted. 



e' 



Vertebral entry of bullet. 



e" 



" exit of " 



Ca. 



Ascending colon. 



Cd. 



Descending colon. 



D. 



Extraperitoneal part of Duodenum. 



H. 



Aorta. 



V. 



Vena Cava. 



K. K. 



Kidneys. 



Sc. 



Spinal Cord. 



S. 



Spleen. 



The thick straight line represents the bullet track. 



Protoplasm Stained whilst Living. — Mr. L. F. Hen- 

 neguy publishes the result of some experiments made on 

 living infusoria, in which he confirms the observations of 

 Brandt, made in 1879, tnat an aqueous solution of aniline 

 brown, known in commerce as Bismarck brown, will give 

 an intense brownish-yellow color to the protoplasm of the 

 infusoria without in any way interfering with their enjoy- 

 ment of life. The coloration first appears in the vacuoles 

 of the protoplasm, then this latter is itself stained, the 

 nucleus being most generally not at first colored, and so 

 being made more conspicuous. Experiments made on 

 vegetable protoplasm seemed to exhibit the same result. 



