The soldier himself made no application for pension.
A physician testifies that he was present on the 21st day of July, 1873, when the soldier died; that he examined the body after death, and to the best of his knowledge such death was caused partially by epilepsy, and that the epilepsy was the result of "wounds about the face and head received during his service during the war."
Another physician testifies that the soldier applied to him for treatment in 1868, and that his disability was the development of confirmed epilepsy, and he expresses the opinion that this was due to a wound from a buckshot. This physician, while not giving epilepsy as the cause of death, says that "had he lived to die a natural death he certainly would have died an insane epileptic."
The report speaks of his death by "an accidental shot."
The truth appears to be that he was killed by a pistol shot in an altercation with another man.
Unless it shall be assumed that the epilepsy was caused by the buckshot wound spoken of, and unless a pension should be allowed because, if the soldier had not been killed in an altercation, he might have soon died from such epilepsy, this bill is entirely devoid of merit.
Surely no one will seriously propose that a claim for pension should rest upon a conjecture as to what would have caused death if it had not occurred in an entirely different way.
The testimony of the physician who testified in this case that death was caused partially by epilepsy suggests the extreme recklessness which may characterize medical testimony in applications for pension.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 18, 1888.