Anesthesia: N2O started at 10:51 P.M. ended 12:14 A.M. Pulse during anesthesia 104-114
Operation begun 11:22 P.M., ended 12:25 A.M.
What was done: Perforation—2—Transfer [sic!] colon.
[Signature not decipherable]
In the monograph previously referred to, Dr. Loria of New Orleans compiled a more detailed technical description of the surgical procedure. This was published in 1948 by the International Abstracts of Surgery (Volume 87) as a treatise dealing with 31,751 cases of abdominal gunshot wounds admitted to Charity Hospital during the first forty-two years of the present century. Dr. Loria appended to it a series of reports on notable personages in American history who had succumbed to such wounds, including President Garfield, President McKinley, and Senator Long. Referring to the Senator’s case, he wrote in part:
“The bullet which struck Senator Long entered just below the border of the right ribs anteriorly, somewhat lateral to the mid-clavicular line. The missile perforated the victim’s body, making its exit just below the ribs on the right side posteriorly and to the inner side of the midscapular line, not far from the midline of the back.
“... At the hospital, arrangements were made for an emergency laparotomy with Vidrine in charge.... Under ether anesthesia the abdomen was opened by an upper right rectus muscle splitting incision. Very little blood was found in the peritoneal cavity. The liver, gall bladder and stomach were free of injury. A small hematoma, about the size of a silver dollar, was found in the mesentery of the small intestine. The only intra-peritoneal damage found was a ‘small’ perforation of the hepatic flexure, which accounted for a slight amount of soiling of the peritoneum. Both the wounds of entry and of exit in the colon were sutured and further spillage stopped. The abdomen was closed in layers as usual.”
About one o’clock that morning Drs. Maes and Rives arrived, and somewhat later Dr. Russell Stone, another noted New Orleans surgeon. None of these saw any part of the operative procedure, all surgery having been completed before their arrival. But a sharp difference of opinion between Dr. Vidrine and Dr. Stone was followed by the latter’s prompt return to New Orleans without so much as looking at the patient. Dr. Stone told some of his New Orleans associates and close friends that Vidrine had given him the details of the abdominal operation and had also said that the kidney was injured and was hemorrhaging.
“Did you see the kidney?” he asked Vidrine, and added that the latter replied: “No, but I felt it.” An acrimonious interchange followed and at its climax Vidrine said something to the general effect of “Well, go on in and examine him for yourself.” Stone replied: “Not I. This isn’t my case and he isn’t my patient. Good night.” Thereupon he returned at once to New Orleans.
Dr. Rives’s account of his experiences clearly illustrates on what he based his opinion that the procedure was “chaotic.”