EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 10, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith return without approval House bill No. 490, entitled "An act
granting a pension to George W. Pitner."
It appears from the records that the beneficiary named in this bill
entered the military service in June, 1863, and was discharged in March,
1866. He was treated while in the Army in the months of December, 1864,
and January, 1865, for conjunctivitis.
He filed a claim for pension in 1886, alleging that he had a sunstroke
in 1865, and that while at work in a basement in the year 1881 he fell
into a well which was open near him and received serious injuries,
resulting in the amputation of his right foot and also disability of his
left foot. He attributes his fall to vertigo, consequent upon or related
to the sunstroke he suffered in the Army.
The claim was rejected on the ground that the evidence taken failed to
connect the disabilities for which a pension was claimed with army
service.
Whatever may be said of the incurrence of sunstroke in the Army, though
he fixes it as after the date of his only medical treatment during
his service, and whatever may be said of the continuance of vertigo
consequent upon the sunstroke for sixteen years, I find no proof that
at the time he fell he was afflicted with vertigo, unless it be his own
statement; and whatever disability naturally arose from sunstroke does
not appear by him to have been deemed sufficient to induce him to apply
for a pension previous to his fall.
In any event there seems to be no satisfactory evidence that anything
which occurred in his army service was the cause of his fall and
consequent injury.