Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — A Surgeon’s Terrible Mistake. [ARTICLE]

A Surgeon’s Terrible Mistake.

“A few years ago,” said Charles J. Patterson, of Philadelphia, “I learned the secret of the life of a man who had passed more than a quarter of a century with scarcely a smile. He had been a physician and surgeon, and on one occasion had to remove an injured eye in order to save the other eye, and prevent total blindness. The night before the operation he had been drinking heavily with some friends, and, although the following morning he was sober, his hand waß unsteady and his nerves unstrung. “After administering chloroform he made a fatal and horrible blunder, removing the well eye by mistake, and thus consigning his patient to perpetual blindness. The moment he discovered his error he turned the man over to a competent surgeon, dfeeded everything he possessed to him, and hurried from the neighborhood like a convicted thier. The lemainder of his life was one constant round of remorse, and he rapidly developed into a confirmed misanthrope. The secret of his life was known to a number of people, but when it was finally revealed to me it explained a mystery, and made me respect the man, for however grave was his original blunder, which In some respects was, of course, Mjorse than a crime, his repentance was of the most genuine character.”—New York Recorder.