Mudds aim to clear name of doc who treated Lincoln killer

[L Verge]

About 25 years ago, I remember someone questioning when the Hippocratic Oath became standard practice for doctors entering the profession. Was it practiced in 1865 to the full extent of being covered by the law? Had Dr. Mudd taken the Hippocratic Oath? Proof?

[Houmes]

(07-28-2015 06:54 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Just legally, since Booth and Herold showed up after the assassination, and JWB was his patient, wouldn't Dr. Mudd anyway have been bound by medical confidentiality and the Hippocratic Oath to not to inform the government officials? (While not bound when it came to prevent.)

I'll be the first to admit I'm not an attorney, but I have had experience in clinical practice, have served as an expert witness, and for a time was a member of both a hospital ethics committee and a state medical board which licensed and disciplined physicians.

First, the Hippocratic Oath is traditionally used to instill ethical standards and taking the oath is a rite of passage for graduating medical students. It is rarely used today in the United States, although it was common in 1865. In 1989 only three U.S. medical schools used the original oath, while others employed similar oaths which had been updated with similar intent. Two schools at that time didn't use any oath(!). A code of ethics in the U.S. was formulated in 1847 by the American Medical Association, but this--like the Hippocratic Oath--was concerned to protect patient/doctor confidentiality for medical treatments. There was no movement otherwise for medical confidentiality as a legal obligation until the late 19th century.

Second, most states today have some form of legal requirement for physicians to report to law enforcement gunshot/stab wounds/life-threatening injuries, acts of domestic violence and child abuse, impaired patients about to leave a clinic/hospital and drive anywhere, or a real concern when a patient threatens harm or death to a particular person or persons.

I would be interested in an attorney's view of Mr. Booth's rights in this manner, and compare 19th century and current thought.

And for Laurie, I don't know what the University of Maryland used in 1865, but they "traditionally" used the Oath and Prayer of Maimonides.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Dr. Houmes!

BTW, at the Harvard Medical School, the Yale School of Medicine, and the National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health, Maryland you can see descendants of Hippocrates's oriental plane tree, under the canopy of which the Father of Medicine taught in 500 BC:
http://www.gardendesign.com/ideas/botani...ippocrates

[wsanto]

Dr. Mudd treated Boothe then lied about it to investigators. He wasn't lying because of some principe of ethics. He did eventually inform authorities indirectly via his brother about the "strangers" whom he treated.

[L Verge]

(08-03-2015 01:18 PM)wsanto Wrote:  Dr. Mudd treated Boothe then lied about it to investigators. He wasn't lying because of some principe of ethics. He did eventually inform authorities indirectly via his brother about the "strangers" whom he treated.

Maybe when he took a pledge to "do no harm," he meant to himself??

[margotdarby]

Hello again L Verge. I'm curious to know where you got the suggestion that Catholics were generally not supposed to attend Mass at other parishes. I come from a Catholic family and this information runs counter to everything I know. The Mass was identical in every parish church throughout the Western world (at least).

Not to get stuck on this minor issue, but main point is that I don't think there was anything outré or suspicious about Mudd going to a different church, provided it was RC.

(07-19-2015 03:08 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Booth comes to Southern Maryland with letters of introduction from Canadian exiles. Those letters direct him to Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel Mudd. Dr. Queen gets word to Dr. Mudd to come to a Catholic church outside of his own parish (frowned upon in those days) to meet with Booth - supposedly under the guise of Booth looking to buy land and maybe a horse (the latter of which Dr. Mudd does acquire for him).
*snip*

[L Verge]

(10-29-2015 01:53 PM)margotdarby Wrote:  Hello again L Verge. I'm curious to know where you got the suggestion that Catholics were generally not supposed to attend Mass at other parishes. I come from a Catholic family and this information runs counter to everything I know. The Mass was identical in every parish church throughout the Western world (at least).

Not to get stuck on this minor issue, but main point is that I don't think there was anything outré or suspicious about Mudd going to a different church, provided it was RC.

(07-19-2015 03:08 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Booth comes to Southern Maryland with letters of introduction from Canadian exiles. Those letters direct him to Dr. William Queen and Dr. Samuel Mudd. Dr. Queen gets word to Dr. Mudd to come to a Catholic church outside of his own parish (frowned upon in those days) to meet with Booth - supposedly under the guise of Booth looking to buy land and maybe a horse (the latter of which Dr. Mudd does acquire for him).
*snip*

Are you basing your comments on current practices or Catholic standards of the mid-1800s? Half of my family started out Catholic and were assigned to "home parishes." All followed the same liturgy, but I was led to understand that the diocese made the assignments in order to assure fairly equal congregational attendance and monetary support. I have a friend whose family had belonged to one Catholic parish for generations, but as late as the 1980s was reassigned to another, newer parish.

I worked with James O. Hall when he was researching this facet of the Mudd introduction to Booth. His research determined that St. Mary's Bryantown was his wife's family's (Dyers) home church; but once they were married, they and the children were to go to St. Peter's, the Mudds' home parish. The church records for St. Peter's shows the children being baptised there, and we know that Dr. Mudd saw to Ned Spangler being converted to Catholicism near the time of his death and subsequently buried in the old St. Peter's Cemetery.

Finally, that fateful Sunday in November of 1864, Dr. Mudd went alone to St. Mary's Bryantown - no family with him. In April of 1865, he was going to St. Peter's - where he reported to his first cousin (Union man Dr. George Mudd) that he (Dr. George) might want to mention those strange visitors that Dr. Sam and Frankie tended to on April 15.

One more point: As a young married lady, Mary Surratt and a friend, Christiana Summers, rode horseback in their area to raise funds to establish a Catholic church (St. Ignatius) in the area of what is now Oxon Hill, Maryland. After the Surratts moved to Surrattsville, however, she no longer went to the little church she loved. Their home church became St. Mary's Piscataway - even though only a few miles separated the two churches. If you read her letters, you'll also see that Mr. Surratt likely solved the problem by refusing to take her to Mass period.

[Dennis Urban]

The discussion about which Catholic church one was "assigned" to or supposed to attend does not change the history. Dr. Mudd's residence was between the 2 churches so he could easily attend where he felt most comfortable or closest to other stops he might be making while out. Since transportation was by horseback or buggy, it took some planning to determine to which church one might choose to attend. Usually one attended where they had some connection through baptism or marriage. Mudd had a family connection to both and I suspect he attended both as he felt disposed except when "business" took him to one or the other.

[L Verge]

I agree that history is not changed, but those familiar with the area know that the original St. Peter's Church (the cemetery still exists) was MUCH closer to the Mudds than St. Mary's Bryantown. Even with the good roads today, St. Mary's is at least a mile on the other side of Bryantown - even farther from the Mudd home (which really isn't that close to Bryantown - it is closer to the now-extinct village of Beantown, vestiges of which still existed when I was a child).

On Sundays, the only other business would have likely been seeing patients after church, but Dr. George Mudd attended most of the folks in the Bryantown area, I believe (despite the fact that he was a Union man, he was also well-respected as a doctor). No shopping on Sundays back then (even when I was growing up) and no diners to sit down and have coffee and eggs in after church.

Oh, how I wish that Msgr. Robert Keesler were still alive to explain the parish concept and church assignments to you as he did for Mr. Hall and me. He would be well past 100 if he were still alive and was very well-versed in Confederate history as well as the Lincoln assassination (and even Billy the Kid!).

Samuel A. Mudd was summoned to be at St. Mary's that Sunday by John C. Thompson, Dr. William Queen's son-in-law for one important reason.

[Rhatkinson]

The most compelling evidence to disprove the "Booth wore a disguise at Mudd's" argument is Booth's interaction with Lloyd during he and Davy's stop at Surratt Tavern.

There, Booth tells Lloyd, who is a stranger to him, his "bit of news" that he has assassinated the president and Seward. If Booth would brag about the assassination with Lloyd, it is impossible to believe that he would suddenly do an about face and not only fail to mention the assassination to Dr. Mudd just hours later (which is one of the claims that the Mudd family makes), but also don a disguise to attempt to hide his identity from a person who he is very familiar with. It makes zero sense and I am convinced that not only did Booth not wear any kind of disguise, but that he also told Dr. Mudd about the assassination immediately.

Heath

[RobertLC]

Heath,

I seem to recall that some years later Dr. Mudd admitted to a friend that he immediately recognized Booth when Booth arrived at his house that morning. However, I can't remember where I read it. Maybe I'm having a senior moment, but I'll try to find it.

Whether or not Booth told Mudd about the assassination, perhaps we'll never know.

Bob

[Jim Page]

(11-02-2015 02:16 PM)Rhatkinson Wrote:  The most compelling evidence to disprove the "Booth wore a disguise at Mudd's" argument is Booth's interaction with Lloyd during he and Davy's stop at Surratt Tavern.
and
. . . I am convinced that not only did Booth not wear any kind of disguise, but that he also told Dr. Mudd about the assassination immediately.

I agree 100% with what Heath concluded in his post and for exactly the same reasons.

--Jim

[L Verge]

(11-02-2015 03:24 PM)RobertLC Wrote:  Heath,

I seem to recall that some years later Dr. Mudd admitted to a friend that he immediately recognized Booth when Booth arrived at his house that morning. However, I can't remember where I read it. Maybe I'm having a senior moment, but I'll try to find it.

Whether or not Booth told Mudd about the assassination, perhaps we'll never know.

Bob

Bob - I think you are referring to Samuel Cox, Jr.'s comment that Dr. Sam told him exactly that while the two were campaigning for a state political position years later.

As I have said before, the image of Booth trying to attach stage whiskers while trying to stay upright in the saddle of a speeding horse is rather farcical to me. Of course, I have been "stabbed" several times for daring to suggest that Mudd knew to expect Booth at some point because Herold had already alerted key people in Southern Maryland on April 12-13.

[RobertLC]

Thanks, Laurie!

Now, I know I'm not going crazy and I did read it somewhere. That is exactly how I remember it. They were campaigning.

Have to admit that your description creates a funny image of Booth on a horse, but also a serious image that Mudd knew well in advance. Interesting.

Thanks again.

Bob

[STS Lincolnite]

(11-02-2015 05:34 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Bob - I think you are referring to Samuel Cox, Jr.'s comment that Dr. Sam told him exactly that while the two were campaigning for a state political position years later.

That is interesting. I had never heard about that comment from Cox before. Laurie, can you tell me where and when Cox reported what Mudd had told him? Thanks!

---

In doing a little digging, I found a transcript of an affidavit given by a man by the name of George W. Dutton. Dutton (a Captain in Co. C of the 10th regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps) was guarding Mudd and other prisoners while they were being transported to the Dry Tortugas. In his affidavit given August 22, 1865, he says that Mudd admitted to him that he did in fact know who Booth was when he arrived at his home on the morning of April 15th but didn't say anything because he was afraid for his own and his family's safety. There were several other things that he states Mudd admitted to. Apparently the fact that Mudd made these statements was corroborated by a Navy paymaster and an Army general who were present at the time the statement was made.

In a response to the affidavit, Mudd (in a statement dated August 28, 1865) of course denied having ever made such a statement to Dutton.