EXECUTIVE MANSION, _July 5, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 7907, entitled "An act granting
a pension to Mary Ann Lang."
The husband of this beneficiary was wounded in the nose on the 1st day
of June, 1864, and was mustered out of the service July 8, 1865. He was
pensioned on account of this wound and died February 21, 1881. Prior to
his death he had executed a declaration claiming pension also for
rheumatism, but the application was not filed before he died.
The cause of his death was dropsy. The widow filed her claim for pension
in 1884, which was rejected on the ground that the soldier's fatal
disease was not the result of his military service.
A physician of good repute, who appears to have attended him more than
any other physician for a number of years prior to his death, gives an
account of rheumatic ailments and other troubles, and states that about
a year and a half before he died he had a liver trouble which resulted
in dropsy, which caused his death. He adds that the soldier was a man
who drank beer, and at times to excess, and that he drank harder toward
the last of his life. He further states that he is unable to connect the
liver trouble with his rheumatism, and could not give any other reason
for it except his long use of beer and liquor, and if that was not the
cause it greatly aggravated it; that he had cautioned him about
drinking, and at times he heeded the advice.
An appeal was taken from the action rejecting the claim and the case was
submitted to the medical referee of the Pension Bureau, who decided upon
all the testimony that the soldier's fatal disease (dropsy) was due to
disease of the liver, which was not a sequence of rheumatism and was the
result of excessive use of alcoholic stimulants.
It will be observed that no claim is made that death in any way resulted
from the wound for which a pension had been allowed, and that even if
rheumatism was connected with the death its incurrence in the Army had
never been established.
I am satisfied that this case was properly disposed of by the Pension
Bureau.