Mr. Roosevelt And His Doctors.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 17, 1912:
    Col. Roosevelt is a hard man to control, everybody knows that, yet he ought to have been taken under control immediately after the attack upon him Monday night, he ought to have been dissuaded or prevented from making his speech. Again, in the hospital in Chicago control and authority ought to have been asserted to prevent the admission of visitors to his bedside. Any person who has even a small understanding of the right treatment of invalids and of persons suffering from hurts knows that all this is true.
    The risk Col. Roosevelt took in talking to an audience for an hour and a half with that bullet in his breast was much too grave. The risk his physicians take in permitting visitors to see him and talk with him is so grave that it should not be taken at all. We have had like experience in the past, when medical men of high standing have shown reluctance to oppose the will of distinguished patients, when they have permitted imprudences that should have been forbidden. This is evidently what has happened in the case of Col. Roosevelt. In extenuation, it will be said, of course, that Mr. Roosevelt is self-willed, and is bound to have his own way. But the surgeons say in their bulletins that the wound is not a mere flesh wound, it is a serious bullet wound in the chest. Manifestly, that is a case where the iron will of the doctor should dominate and determine all conditions. It is always a weakness to yield to the entreaties of visitors or of patients when the doctor's own judgment is that visits should be forbidden. That is the prudent way, the safest way, and in the case of a patient so distinguished as Mr. Roosevelt the prudent way and the safe way is the one to be taken.