I have seen quite a number of this type who had been brought into this unnecessary state by bungling doctors who were treating them for typhoid fever and its complications.

I say without fear of successful contradiction that there never was and never will be such a case unless it is made so by the worst sort of malpractice.

The fact that a diagnosis was made in spite of the tympanitic distention is proof that a dangerous force was used in doing so, converting a typhlitic abscess into a perityphlitic one, and doubtlessly causing premature rupture into the bowel.  Any professional man, with the right regard for his patient’s welfare, and the judicial understanding that qualifies him for taking the responsibility of directing the treatment of so important a case, would scarcely have laid the weight of his finger on an abdomen in such a dangerous condition.  The symptoms and course of the malady up to that time should have told the real diagnostician that there was an abscess and that the abscess would rupture into the cecum if it were not meddled with.

No one with a proper understanding of his responsibility in such a case would have thought of undertaking an operation with a patient in the physical condition that this man was reported to be in.  “The long continuance of the severe symptoms” is proof positive that the “severe symptoms” were false or man-made.]

“Morphine was ordered subcutaneously, Priessnitz compresses to the abdomen, pellets of ice and meat jelly by mouth; eventually gastric ravage.”

[Under the circumstances this was positively murderous.  Acknowledging to such treatment forces me to declare that the witness is incompetent, on the ground that no one has a right to incriminate himself.  Nothing but the most positive malpractice could have brought a case of this kind to need gastric ravage, at this age and stage of the disease.]

"Upon the sixth day of the disease the picture changed."

[It is impossible for any case to arrive at this state of maturation in six days, if allowed to take its own course.]

“The complexion became sallow, the face elongated, the eyes hollow; the pulse was 140, small, but quite regular; the temperature was 101.3 degree F.;”

[The great discrepancy between the pulse and temperature was caused by the opium.]

“there was clammy perspiration and a cool skin, the hands were cold; frequently slight eructations occurred and, now and then, ineffectual or mild paroxysms of vomiting of a greenish yellow material with a slight fecal odor.”

[All these symptoms were positively unnecessary.  They were built by food end drugs.]

“The mind was clear; there was little pain.”

[There was no reason why the mind should not be clear, and there should have been no pain after the third day.]

“The abdomen became somewhat softer, much less painful, and was readily palpated and percussed; there was a distinct resistance about the size of a hand, quite firm, and not fluctuating, and accompanied by marked dullness, around McBurney’s point and downward, and only in this region severe stabbing pain; in other areas no dullness.”