Dr. Mudd's Diagnosis

[L Verge]

Wow! Nothing amateurish in those ramblings for us novices! Thank you, Dr. Greene.

We know that Dr. Mudd was examining the leg (and probably setting it) under nothing but a flickering lantern or lamp, so there was certainly room for error. We don't know how much he manipulated or felt the leg to see how close the bone was to the skin, do we? Once he placed the makeshift splint on the leg, did he ever exam it again in the twelve-plus hours that Booth remained at his home?

There was certainly no x-ray taken to determine if the fracture left jagged edges on both sides or a clean break (the latter of which happened to my shoulder and actually made it harder to heal because the bones kept separating). In my case, keeping the bones immobile became quite a chore that kept this 10-year-old in three different types of casts, traction, and finally something called an airplane splint for nearly four months. Booth was certainly anything but immobile.

My assumption has always been that the constant movement from running, mounting horses, getting off horses, being supported upstairs, etc. caused damage to the interior layers of his leg that resulted in infection by the time Ruggles would have seen him. However, I don't recall any mention of the Garretts noticing a smell of gangrene or even a serious limp. I once had a student with gangrene forming on a cut to his knee. As soon as he pulled up his pant's leg, you could smell the wound.

Finally, someone refresh my memory: was there any mention of a badly damaged leg in Booth's meager autopsy report? Why do I think that the doctors concentrated on the death wound and nothing else?