F.H. Hooper of Boston, well known as
an authority on diseases of the throat, wrote me: "Washington's
physicians are not to be criticised for their treatment, for they
acted according to their best light and knowledge. To treat such
a case in such a manner in the year 1889 would be little short
of criminal. At the present time the physicians would use the
laryngoscope and _look_ and _see_ what the trouble was. (The
laryngoscope has only been used since 1857.) In this disease the
function most interfered with is breathing. The one thing which saves
a patient in this disease is a _timely tracheotomy_. (I doubt if
tracheotomy had ever been performed in Virginia in Washington's time.)
Washington ought to have been tracheotomized, or rather that is the
way cases are saved to-day. No one would think of antimony, calomel,
or bleeding now. The point is to let in the air, and not to let out
the blood. After tracheotomy has been performed, the oedema and
swelling of the larynx subside in three to six days. The tracheotomy
tube is then removed, and respiration goes on again through the
natural channels."]
CHAPTER VII
GEORGE WASHINGTON
This last chapter cannot begin more fitly than by quoting again the
words of Mr. McMaster: "George Washington is an unknown man." Mr.
McMaster might have added that to no man in our history has greater
injustice of a certain kind been done, or more misunderstanding been
meted out, than to Washington, and although this sounds like the
merest paradox, it is nevertheless true.
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