EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 22, 1886_.
_To the Senate_:
I hereby return without approval Senate bill No. 2005, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Mary J. Nottage."
The beneficiary named in this bill is the widow of Thomas Nottage, who
enlisted in August, 1861, and was discharged for disability September
17, 1862. The assistant surgeon of his regiment, upon his discharge,
certified the cause to be "disease of the urinary organs," which had
troubled him several years.
He died of consumption January 8, 1879, nearly seventeen years after his
discharge, without ever having made any application for a pension.
In 1880 his widow made an application for pension, alleging that he
contracted in the service "malarial poisoning, causing remittent fever,
piles, general debility, consumption, and death," and that he left two
children, both born after his discharge, one in 1866 and the other in
1874.
The only medical testimony which has been brought to my attention
touching his condition since his discharge is that of a single physician
to the effect that he attended him from the year 1873 to the time of his
death in 1879. He states that the patient had during that time "repeated
attacks of remittent fever and irritability of the bladder, with organic
deposits;" that "in the spring of 1878 he had sore throat and cough,
which resulted in consumption, of which he died."
The claim of the widow was rejected in July, 1885, on the ground that
"the soldier's death was not the result of his service."