Out Of Danger In 34 Hours.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 17, 1912:
Spectacles and Paper Prevented Perforation of Body, Says Dr. Hutchinson
Special to The New York Times.
    CHICAGO, Oct. 16.— Among Col. Roosevelt's visitors at the Mercy Hospital this morning was Dr. Woods Hutchinson, who later on request wrote out a statement of the ex-President's condition. Dr. Hutchinson said in part:
    "Theodore Roosevelt owes his life today to his short-sightedness and his magnificent constitution, due to outdoor life and his abstemious habits.
    "His short-sightedness saves his life from the fact that in his coat pocket lay his steel spectacle case and his heavy myopic glasses. This and the manuscript of his Milwaukee speech together were the only things that prevented the vicious drive of the 38 Colt from sending its bullet straight through his chest in such a manner as to cut wide open the current or arch of the aorta, the great blood vessel which leaves the heart, and which would have meant death by hemorrhage within forty-five seconds.
    "The vicious bore of the rifled bullet would have gone through the folds of paper almost unchecked had these not been reinforced by the two thicknesses of the steel-clad spectacle case.
    "Now that these strange bed fellows or pocket fellows have saved him from instant death, what of the further dangers that menace him. Against these, fortunately, he has already a magnificent defense — his excellent constitution, hardened and kept in perfect condition by strenuous and open air life and by clean and temperate living.
    "The dangers that follow a severe and torn gunshot wound, involved in one of the great vital organs, are of two sorts, internal and external.
    "The second are by far the more serious. In a nutshell, the only menace to Col. Roosevelt's life depends upon the accidental germs or of the bacilli which happen to be carried into his body with the bullet. Such germs as might have been adhered to the surface of the bullet itself are not to be regarded as any serious menace, for the reason that the heat of the powder and tremendous friction heat generated by driving the bullet through the grooves of the rifle barrel of the revolver raised the surface temperature of the missile to such a heat that the germs would be destroyed. This has been tested by the surgeons connected with both American and European armies.
    "The real danger in the wound is from the accidental germs that may have been in the clothing of the patient or the contents of his pockets, or upon the surface of his skin. Our gunners and seafighters even in Nelson's time were awake to its danger. Though they knew nothing of germs, they were always stripped naked to the waist, because they knew that a wound into which pieces of shirts or clothing were carried always did badly.
    "The germ menace that might be carried in from the clothing are some of the milder germs of suppuration or blood poison, the germ of tetanus or lockjaw, and the germ of coccus of pneumonia. To safeguard against any possibility of infection by the lockjaw germ Col. Roosevelt has already been given an injection of the anti-tetanic serum, though the danger is rather remote.
    "As it is now nearly forty hours since the accident, he has already passed through, without a single bad symptom, nearly two-thirds or all of the probable danger period from the other infections, so that if his present splendid and buoyant condition continues for twenty-four more hours he may be regarded as practically out of danger."