EXECUTIVE MANSION, _October 16, 1888_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I return without approval House bill No. 10661, entitled "An act
granting a pension to Mrs. Sophia Vogelsang."
The husband of this beneficiary was severely wounded in the military
service of the United States, and in consequence of said wound his
left leg was amputated. This was in 1862. In January, 1863, another
amputation was performed higher up above the knee. He appears at that
time to have been living, or at least was treated, at Detroit, Mich.
He was pensioned at the rate of $30 per month at the time of his death,
which occurred at Louisville, Ky., where he appears to have then
resided, on the 21st day of July, 1885.
The beneficiary filed a claim for pension in November, 1885, alleging
that her husband died of gangrene.
There does not, however, seem to be a particle of evidence establishing
that cause of death. On the contrary, the report received at the Pension
Bureau of his death attributes it to sunstroke, and this does not seem
to be directly questioned.
The report of the House committee to whom this bill was referred
proceeds upon the theory that death was caused from the use of opium to
allay the pain of the wound. This theory is presented upon the alleged
opinion of the surgeon living in Detroit, who made the second amputation
in 1863. He says that the pain of the wound obliged the soldier to
take morphine. But it does not appear that he observed the case for a
long time preceding death. Instead of his giving an opinion that the
disability and morphine produced death, he says, as it is reported to
me, after describing the condition of the limb previous to its
amputation in 1863 and immediately thereafter:
According to my opinion, said disability and the constant use of
morphia in consequence of it may have been the cause of his death.
This and the statement of a druggist in Louisville that he sold him
morphine to alleviate pain, and of two different persons with whom he
boarded at that city in 1885 to the same effect, is all the evidence
that I can discover tending in the least to hint that the death of the
pensioner resulted from any cause but sunstroke, which really stands as
the undisputed cause of death.
The allegation in the committee's report that the beneficiary's claim
was rejected by the Pension Bureau on the ground that her husband's
death proceeded from the use of morphine is erroneous. The cause of
rejection is stated to be "that the death cause (sunstroke) was not the
result of the soldier's military service."
We are not, therefore, left to the consideration of the question whether
death from the use of morphine to allay pain can be charged to the
disability incurred, for if death resulted from sunstroke it will hardly
be claimed that it was in any way related to such disability.