Reply / by J.L. Ludlow, M.D., to a pamphlet entitled Correction of the erroneous statements of Henry H. Smith, M.D., published in the Medical examiner, January, 1855, in relation to a case of gastrotomy which occurred in the practice of Washington L. Atlee, M.D.

  • Ludlow, J. L. (John Livingston), 1819-1888
Date:
1855
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reply / by J.L. Ludlow, M.D., to a pamphlet entitled Correction of the erroneous statements of Henry H. Smith, M.D., published in the Medical examiner, January, 1855, in relation to a case of gastrotomy which occurred in the practice of Washington L. Atlee, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    first witness, places him, in his over-anxiety to bolster Dr. A., and which is emphatically italicized in his note (see his pamphlet, p. 21). That the case was an obscure one; you considered the tumor to be solid and fibrous ; that yon did not belu ve it to be ovarian, bututerine; that the operation would be exploratory : that you thought the tumor could not be removed? What an acknowledgment] that you thought the tumor was uterine, and could not be re- moved, and yet you opened the woman first to within two inch and afterwards to the umbilicus, and all this exploratory 111 Comment appears to me ^unnecessary. All know the Dr.'fl vaunted superiority in diagnosis in such eases, and here be opens a woman from her umbilicus to her pubis, for what'/ merely to gratify a prurient, childish, reckless curiosity. / have been gracious enough to set his failure in this operation to mis- take in diagnosis, but he and his friends have chosen the other horn of the dilemma, and I am willing he shall hang there, writhing in mental anguish o'er the dark retrospect. Verily, Dr. A. may exclaim, save me from my friends, when they only make him appear still more a pitiful object of contempt. But I have not done with Dr. Drysdale's letter yet. honk how ingenuous! Dr. A. deals with his friends; yes, Dr. Drysclale, his chief witness. He evidently sends to him the same garbled note which he first sent to me, March 13,1855, and which I have corrected over and over again in all our correspondence (for, be it remembered, that it is Dr. Atlee and Dr. Ludlow that now are in question), and Dr. Drysdale tells in his note what we all know and all acknowledge, viz: that there was a tumor, hut not an ovarian. Upon this letter I ask the candid judgment of the profe whether my inferences are not perfectly legitimate ? We now come to Dr. A.'s second witness, Dr. Parry. The very first paragraph of Dr. P.'s letter shows that the same stere- otyped garbled letter of there being no tumor, has been ad- dressed to him (see his pamphlet, p. 22), at which he expresses his surprise; this I have shown before to be a fabrication of Dr. A., and shall not discuss it again. Now let me examine what Dr. Parry remembers (see pamphlet, p. 22). You came down to the room in which a number of medical gentlemen were waiting, and (as is your usual practice), stated that you had previously carefully examined the case, but that the diagnosis