Mr. Hall: We object. Court

epilepsy.

Q. How long did Dr. Davis treat you? Answer – He gave me a regular course of an eye specialist until he gave me a prescription for glasses.

Q. Had you ever worn glasses before? Answer – No, I had very good vision.

Q. How is your vision affected now? Answer – If I get close to the newspaper, but I can’t read with these glasses.

Q. Did Dr. Williams’ treatment do you any good? Answer – He gave me a diet.

Q. Where is Dr. Williams now? Answer – He is at Washington, so far as I know.

Q. Did Dr. Williams make any tests on you? Answer – He made one test himself, two tests; one he made himself.

Q. who made the other test? Answer – Under the supervision of Dr. Williams, it was made at a laboratory on F street.

Q. In that test was any liquid drawn from any part of your body?

Mr. Hall: I object.

Court: I imagine he would know; he can tell what was done.

Answer : The first test was a slight cut made in the ear from which they drew blood, and the next

test was a half pint of blood, or maybe not that much, drawn from my arm through a suction pump. The next test made by Dr. Williams in person was by running a needle an inch and a half or maybe two inches through my spine, and letting it drop the same as sap, letting the fluid drop out into a vessel that he had in his hand. Q. Do you know what it was that hurt the back of your head in this wreck? Answer – I can remember some heavy object. Of course, it was done so quick ----

It was glass or a piece of wood.

Q. What part of your head did you strike when you fell forward? Answer – The forward part of my head and arm. My arm struck a hard jar against the seat, and my head fell forward, it was the forehead or front of my head.

Q. What wages did you get for the three years before this accident, what were your earnings? Answer – Anywhere from $20.00 to $50.00 a week. I must explain to the jury.

Q. Go ahead. Answer – Of course, the jury is well aware of the fact that if men are working on commission; we are working on a salary, and if we could get commission we get paid twice as much; with the Singer Sewing Machine Company we get twenty cents on the dollar for collecting and twenty-five cents on the dollar for sales; if a man sells two machines a day, which is a very bad salesman, he would make eight to ten dollars; that would be $70.00 a week. My lowest salary was $25.00 a week, and my highest was $75.00, that was on a commission basis.

Q. What was your income from collections, leaving out sales? Answer – about $18.00 a week.

Q. That was the highest you made from collections? Answer – From collections.

Q. How low would your income run from collections for those three years? Answer – It would not run under $16.00. You had to keep above $18.00 to hold your position.

Q. Had you lost any time during those three years from sickness? Answer – Not a day, only legal holidays, when the office is never open, and Sundays.

Q. How long did you work for the Singer Sewing Machine Company after your injury on February 23^rd.? Answer – I suppose about two years and ten months or two years and nine months.

Q. I mean after your injury? Answer – About a month, maybe six weeks; not over that.

Q. Why did you quit them? Answer – They brought me a written statement owing to the condition of my physical condition I was unable to look after my business and they were afraid to hire me.

Q. State whether or not they reduced you in any way before you left, or had to quit them? Answer – Mr. Smith, the general manager, knowing me to have a wife and baby, didn’t want to entirely turn me out, so he took one-half of my business away, which cut my salary half; instead of making $18.00 I made $9.00. It was just to get me to hold on.

Q. You were making $9.00 a week? Answer – Yes, sir.

Q. You were holding on to that? Answer – Yes sir; the principal manager of Baltimore told me that he would have to let me out if I couldn’t work every day, he would have to let me out.

Q. Had there been any complaint as to your ability and capacity from the company before that. Answer – None whatsoever.

Q. Are you able, at this time, to go back to work for the Sewing Machine Company and do the work you did before the injury? Answer – I am not able to work for anybody.

Q. State how you suffer now as the result of these injuries outside of your spasms or fits? Answer – Of course, in one way, I used to be an expert base ball player – not a professional, but an expert – and I was told that if it -----

Q. You need not say what you were told. Answer – If I raise my arm I feel like I am shot with a shot gun.

Q. How, if in any way, is your head affected by your injuries?

OBJECTED to by counsel for Southern Railway Company

Answer: How is my head affected outside of epilepsy?

By Mr. Mackey: Yes Answer – I can’t stoop, and I have dull headaches. At the present time I can hardly speak now from it.

Q. How often do you have those headaches? Answer – Continuously all day.

Q. How does it affect your ability to sleep and rest? Answer – I sleep about four hours out of twenty-four, and maybe not that long.

Q. Who has been supporting you during the past five months? Answer – My father-in-law principally.

Q. Are you able to render him any help or assistance? Answer – None whatsoever.
THIS EXAMINATION OF THIS WITNESS IS SUSPENDED FOR THE PURPOSE OF ASKING DR. HOOE THE HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION.
(Dr. A. B. Hooe resumes testimony as follows)

By Mr. Mackey: Doctor, before asking you a hypothetical question. I will ask you what books you have studied on nervous diseases and the nervous system? Answer – I have studied no special book on nervous disease and nervous system. My study of nervous diseases is confined to medical points.

Q. State what medical text books you have studied on nervous diseases, and the nervous system? Answer – Gray’s Anatomy, Kirk’s Physiology, Osler’s Practice of Medicine, Barlow’s Practice of Medicine, and I don’t know how many others.

Q. I wish you would state them in the record, because it goes to your qualifying on this subject? Answer – None of those works are special works on nervous diseases, but they are general text books which cover nervous diseases. To name the different medical text books if would be difficult to name them to put them in the record. Nothnagel’s System of Medicine, Medical Encyclopedia, and Gould’s Medical Dictionary.

Q. Do all of those works treat of nervous diseases? Answer – Yes.

Q. Have you studied all of those books? Answer – Yes, and the American Medical Journal, and the Southern Medical Journal.

Q. I will ask you if you have heard the testimony of Mr. Sullivan here as to how he received certain injuries, and where received, and their effect upon him. Have you heard that testimony? Answer – I have.

Q. Assuming the statements made by the plaintiff, Mr. Sullivan, as to his good health prior to February 23, 1915, and as to his injuries received in the accident, which he narrates, and as to those injuries being followed some weeks later by epileptic convulsions; assuming his statements which are in the record, to be true, what, in your opinion, would be the cause of these epileptic convulsions?

Mr. Hall: We wish the record to show an objection to that question on the ground that Dr. Hooe

has already testified that he was approached by the plaintiff, was told the history of this accident, that he examined him thoroughly and was unable to diagnose the case as then stated to him.

that he is not an expert in nervous diseases.

he will be frank to say so. If he is in position to answer the question, I know that he will do so.

(DEFENDANTS EXCEPT TO THE RULING OF THE COURT)

Answer: Do you want me to answer what, in my opinion, is the cause of this man’s epilepsy?

Court: Yes, if you feel you are competent to give an opinion as an expert.

Mr. Mackey: Assuming his statement to be true. Answer – It is not a question of whither I

consider I am competent to answer the question, but I am debating where I stand as an expert.

sustained at this time.

Mr. Mackey with respect to Dr. Hooe having heard all the testimony.

elements necessary in this case.

Yes, sir. Q. Assuming all of that evidence to be true, what, in your opinion, if you think you are competent to give an opinion, was the cause of these epileptic attacks? Answer – I think the epilepsy is the result of some injury to the brain sustained as the result of the accident.

any of you.

CROSS EXAMINATION

By Mr. Browning: (A.T.)

Q. Doctor, I understand that in your diagnosis of September, I believe you said it was, 1915, you were not satisfied as to the cause of Mr. Sullivan’s condition? Answer – I did not arrive at a definite conclusion.

Q. You also said I believe, that you could not assure yourself whether or not he was a malingerer; that is in September, 1915? Answer – I did.

Q. Nothing further has happened in his case, so far as you are concerned, except his statement made on the stand today. Answer – I saw Mr. Sullivan more than once, but I do not recall how many times. I saw Mr. Sullivan several times.

Q. Since September? Answer – Since the first visit, since I first saw him in September.

Q. Your examination in chief – that is, before Mr. Sullivan got on the stand – were you speaking then of the last time you saw him before this examination? Answer – My first examination of Mr. Sullivan was made in September. I think that was the month, the latter part of September 1915. I saw him several times after that. I don’t think I personally prescribed any medicine for Mr. Sullivan at any time.

Q. And during none of those examinations could you assure yourself that he was not a malingerer? Answer – I could not say positively and absolutely. I arrived at the conclusion that he was not. I might be mistaken, as I am not infallible.

q. doctor, you said in answer to a question just now that Mr. Mackey asked you, that you think you are competent to answer that question without being an expert. Was your answer as an expert? Answer – No, sir, I answered that question as an ordinary every-day, common doctor, not as an expert.

Q. Not as an expert? Answer – Not as an expert.

Q. Do you consider yourself an expert on nervous diseases?

discuss it now.

years makes him an expert, even if he says that he is not.

(Exception by counsel for Plaintiff)

sir. Q. Have you practiced extensively for nervous ailments? Answer – No, sir.

Q. Have you specialized at all on nervous ailments in your practice? Answer – No, sir.

Court: Doctor in your examination in chief you made that statement, didn’t you? Answer – I did;

I declined to qualify as an expert.

particular case this subject or patient might be a malingerer? Answer – Because, my dear sir, as long as I was undecided as to two conditions. I must try to satisfy myself which of the conditions a man is the victim of. I would rather find that he is the victim of certain things than that I am the victim of a malingerer. There is a personal pride with us about some of those things. Q. Is it a frequent occurrence for a man, with a damage suit against a railroad, to be a malingerer?

opinion whatever.

experts in that line. I should imagine.

Q. Doctor, as I understood it, you never did diagnose this gentleman’s case finally yourself, and you have not yet, on the stand, expressed your opinion as to what he had, if anything, so far; that is a fair statement, is it not? Answer – I don’t think it is, Mr. Hall.

Q. Now, I want to get it perfectly straight, and I don’t want to do you n injustice for a moment, but I do want the jury to understand all the facts. Did not you testify that you had not been able to reach any conclusion as to what this man had as between two things; one, whether he was a malingerer; and, one, whether he had brain lesion; that was your testimony? Answer – Yes, sir, conditionally; at my first examination I was unable to decide which of the two conditions it was, a lesion or a malingerer. At that time I had not decided.

Q. Then you never treated him any more? Answer – I saw him, but never prescribed for him. I saw him several times after that.

Q. Then you are unable to answer, under the Judge’s limitation, as to whether you finally made any diagnosis as between those two conditions? Answer – The record will show I said I had determined later on, my conclusions were that the condition was probably the result of a brain lesion.

Q. And that conclusion was based on your own diagnosis, and not on what the other doctor told you? Answer – The result of the laboratory examination, and my talk with the other doctors did not influence me not to make that examination by any means. I would not pretend to say that in my final conclusion they were not probably made stronger by having the co-operation of my colleagues.

Q. That is what I am coming to. You mean to say that your final diagnosis was influenced and was based to some extent, upon that? Answer – Probably to some extent. There was some influence upon the qualification of my colleagues.

Mr. Hall: Then, I move that the testimony as to the brain lesion be stricken out.

Court: He stated upon what he based that opinion. I think that was in response to your question.

Mr. Hall: I ask him as to what he testified to.

Mr. Browning: I suggest that the stenographer read the examination.

Court: I will ask if the last conclusion is based upon his diagnosis of this man, and not influenced

or controlled by hearsay evidence; that is, what somebody else told him?

Answer – It places a man in a very peculiar position to say that he would be absolutely in no way influenced by the co-operation of his colleagues in a thing of this kind, That is my opinion. My opinion is made stronger than it might have been had I not had the co-operation of my colleagues. I am still of that opinion.

Mr. Hall: That is your opinion, not as a nerve specialist? Answer – Yes, sir.

Q. Just as a common, ordinary doctor? Answer – Yes, sir.

Q. What are some of the other causes of brain lesion? Answer – Gunshot wounds, blows on the head, direct blows, blows by contrecoup; for example, a man may fall out of a third story window and fall on his rump and have a concussion.

Q. Is scarlet fever a cause? Answer – Yes, scarlet fever, and measles, and tumors.

Q. Erysipelas? Answer – Yes, it might be.

Q. Typhoid? Answer – It might be, but not direct.

Q. Tumors, I believe you said? Answer – Tumors, cancers and syphilis.

Q. Hemorrhage? Answer – hemorrhage is usually the result of an earlier lesion; there is some lesion there to weaken the vessel.

Q. It may be also the result of degeneration of the tissue? Answer – Yes, it would be a degeneration of the vessels, or it would not burst?

Q. That might degenerate without any external cause, might it not? Answer – No, unless you would call it old age; we have hemorrhage in old people where the vessels become very hard.

Q. How about alcoholism? Answer – That would be an external cause; it would be an external cause just as lead poison would be.

Q. All of those things you have named, I suppose fifteen or twenty, might cause brain lesion, and anything which cause brain lesion might cause epilepsy? Answer – Yes, but I have never known epilepsy as the result of apoplexy.

Q. As a matter of fact, no one knows what causes epilepsy? Answer – Yes, sometimes we can trace it. The cause of epilepsy is usually a brain pressure, and that brain pressure may be caused from many things. It may be caused by specific tumors; that is, syphilis; it may be caused from a blow or a gunshot wound.

Q. An injury to the nose? Answer – It might cause it secondarily, producing meningitis, traveling through the thmoid cells and into the brain.

Q. And ear disease, what do you call it back here(indicating)? Answer – Mastoid.

Q. Meningitis and epilepsy are both nervous diseases? Answer – Yes; epilepsy and meningitis are entirely different propositions. You may have most pronounced meningitis without having epilepsy, but there is more or less meningitis when you have epilepsy.

Q. Your only acquaintance with Mr. Sullivan was from what he told you, I assume. Answer – Yes, sir.

Q. And you say you found not any objective symptoms except what? Answer – Marked rigidity on the back of the head.

Q. Did you notice any lump on the back of his head? Answer – I found no lump except the rigidity which he spoke of.

Q. The last time you examined him was November 5^th Answer – I don’t remember the last time; I don’t remember the last time I examined Mr. Sullivan.

Q. There never was any bump there that you saw? Answer – There has never been any growth or condition of tumor.

Q. Or any protrusion? Answer – The muscles were rigid, but there was no growth there.

Q. You would not call it a contused wound there? Answer – There was not at the time I saw him a contused wound.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION

diseases, are you not?

Q. Mr. Sullivan, have you ever used intoxicating liquors of any kind? Answer – Never in my life in the form of pleasure or medicine.

Q. Have you ever drank any whiskey or beer? Answer – Absolutely no.

Q. Have you used tobacco? Answer – I don’t smoke pipes, or cigars, or cigarettes.

CROSS EXAMINATION

By Mr. Hall:

Q. Mr. Sullivan, you say you were born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania? Answer – That is as near as I can remember/

Q. As near as you can remember? Answer – Yes, sir; I am not positive, because I come here when I was rather young. I am not positive, but I think that is where I was born.

Q. And you have been living in Washington for eighteen years? Answer – As near as I can remember. I am not positive about that either. I was very young when I was brought here.

Q. How long do you remember being in Washington? Answer – I can remember say from 1910 up, when I was old enough to remember it was Washington. What was the first work you did in Washington? Answer – As near as I can remember when I left school I worked with one of the messenger forces, I don’t remember which.

Q. What is that? Answer – One of the messenger forces.

Q. What was the next work you did? Answer – That is a pretty hard matter to go back fifteen or twenty years to little small items.

Court: If you can’t answer any question just say so. Answer – I can answer the first because I

remember that; the others I can’t answer.

Q. What was the next occupation that you can remember having had? Answer – With the Singer Sewing Machine Company.

Q. You were ten years old when you were a messenger, do you think? Answer – No, I think I was fifteen or sixteen.

Q. And the Singer Sewing Machine Company, you went to them three years before the accident> Answer – About three or four.

Q. That was about 1912? Answer – It might have been the latter part of 1911; I am not positive.

Q. For five years before you went to the Singer Sewing Machine Company you don’t remember what you did? Answer – Of course I don’t know exactly. I can remember something I did but I can’t remember the man’s name. I remember learning the tinning business.

Q. What else did you work at? Answer – That is all I can recall.

Q. Were you working at tinning five years? Answer – No, not over a year and a couple of months.

Q. Then the four years between the time you were tinning and the time you went to the Singer Sewing Machine Company you don’t remember what you were doing? Answer – No; it might have been miscellaneous work, but I can’t remember.

Q. When you testified on direct examination that you worked three days for the Washington Times, you were mistaken, were you? Answer – I told you when I worked for the Washington Times and I had to quit on account of this.

Q. I mean during the time you were working with the Singer people, before and after the accident, you testified that you worked for the Washington Times three days? Answer – I worked for the Washington Times three days, but I don’t remember whether I was working for the Singer people at the time I was working with them.

Q. Let us get the dates a little straighter; you were injured February 23^rd, were you? Answer I think so.

Q. And how long were you disabled? Answer – I don’t just remember, but maybe three or four weeks, but somewhere in the neighborhood of a month.

Q. It was your practice to make weekly reports to the Singer Company wasn’t it? Answer – It was.

Q. Did those reports include what you made on collections and sales, too. Answer – The first reports went in, as you know, under my name, but they were not made out by me, as I wasn’t working there.

Q. I asked you whether or not the reports which you made about each week included your commissions from sales as well as from collections? Answer – They did when I signed my name to the report.

Q. But you say there were some reports made by you that were not signed by you? Answer – Some reports were made of my collections which I did not sign, although they were on my report; I was disabled, and some other man took my accounts, so I could hold my job, and instead of my getting the money he got it. It made my report go just the same, because I was disabled and got no money for the work.

Q. Do you remember the first the first time you made report of money you had collected after you went back to the Singer people. Answer – As near as I can remember maybe six weeks or seven weeks after.

Q. Would that be the first week in April? Answer – Something like that; the first week in April.

Q. And that report was made at the end of the first week you went back to work? Answer – It is at the end of the week. It wouldn’t necessarily say I went to work on Monday. I could go to work Saturday and make up the report for the week.

Q. And those reports include your total collections and sales when you made them? A.– When I made them

Q. And you say you made as high as $75.00 a week? Answer – I say it would run to that. I say I would make an average of $20.00 to $75.00, as it would run.

Q. I say, you made as high as $75.00 a week? Answer – The way the commission business would go it would.

Q. I say did you ever make it? Answer – I don’t think I did.

Q. Did you ever make $50.00 a week? Answer – I may and I may not.

Q. Did you ever make over $50.00 a week? Answer I can’t remember that.

Q. Do you remember you ever made $40.00 a week. Answer – I certainly can.

Q. Can you remember any week you made over $40.00? Answer – No, I don’t exactly remember. I may have made it, and I may not.

Q. You understand we are talking about commissions on collections and sales too? Answer – I understand you are talking about the weekly salary.

Q. Yes, I understand you to say you reported that weekly salary at the end of every week on your report, when you made it? Answer – Yes, sir.

Q. You don’t remember making over $40.00 a week? Answer – I can’t remember; my mind is so affected I can’t remember.

Q. I believe you said you remember working for the Southern Express Company four or five days? Answer Four or five days.

Q. Was it the Southern Express Company or the Adams Express Company? Answer – I don’t remember, but it was night work was the reason I took it.

Q. Before you got work with that company did you make application for a position with the Express Company? Answer – I don’t know; maybe I did; I don’t recollect.

Q. Did you make a written application? Answer – I don’t recollect; maybe I did; I will not say positively I didn’t.

Q. Do you recollect about what time you went to work for the Express Company? Answer – I know it was rather warm weather. I know that it was not over five days I worked there.

Q. Sometime about the middle of May? Answer – Pretty near the middle; it was the second week, or the middle, I am not positive.

Q. How soon did you feel after the accident that you had epilepsy? Answer – As I stated before, it was either three weeks, or maybe fifteen days, in the front part of my house; that is when the actual epilepsy come on me.

Q. Mr. Mackey, in his opening statement, said you were very much ashamed of that fact? Answer – I certainly am to the present day, and always will be.

Q. You had told your employers, the Singer Sewing Machine Company, that you worked at night? Answer – I did not; I don’t know as I remember working at night. I told them I worked at night after I left them, and they came to my house and asked if I was in perfect physical condition to accept another position from them, and I told them I was not, that at present I was working at night, after sun down.

Q. Do you know when you left the Singer Sewing Machine Company? Answer – I don’t know?

Q. About July 17^th wasn’t it? Answer – I left the Singer Sewing Machine Company way before that.

Q. Much before that? Answer – Yes, sir, a month or two months at least.

Q. You are positive of that? Answer – I am not positive.

Q. You are not positive? Answer – No.

Q. When would you say you did leave the Singer Sewing Machine Company? Answer – Sometime between the latter part of May and the first of June, I will not say positively of that.

Q. You are not positive when you left the Singer Sewing Machine Company? Answer – No; as I told you before, my memory is so affected I don’t know. I have a very bad mind since the accident.

Q. When you made this application to the Adams Express Company for a position, there were certain blanks that had to be filled out, and they asked you where you were born, and you said, Whipple, West Virginia; were you born in Whipple, West Virginia, or Shenandoah, Pennsylvania? Answer – I was born in Shenandoah, as near as I can remember.

Q. Why did you say you were born in Whipple, West Virginia? Answer – Because of the accident to me, my wife and child were starving, and even the beasts of the field will lie to save their young.

Q. And that is the reason you lied to them? Answer – Yes, they would have found out I had epilepsy, and at the present time my wife was starving.

Q. You also said at that time you lived at Whipple, West Virginia for fifteen years; you lied again? Answer – I lied all round to keep my wife and child from starving. If I had told the truth I would never have worked for anybody.

Q. You mean you never worked for anybody before you made the application? Answer – If I had told them, in answer to the question “Are you physically able to work”, “I have epilepsy”, they would say “Get our”, and that is the reason I made it that way.

Q. When you made application for this employment, did you not say, in response to the question “Are you now or have you ever been subject to epilepsy of falling fits? “ “No” Answer – the reason I said “No”, if I had said “Yes” they would have said “Get Out”; it was one thing or the other, to let my wife starve or get work.

Q. You said when you left the Washington Steel and Ordnance Company you had not done a lick of work since? Answer – No since. I have not got a lick of work since.

Q. You said in the examination immediately following, the reason you had not done a lick of work was when you were able to and did work for a few days, they would find you had epilepsy, and out you would go? Answer – I said that they would find it out in two or three days. Ask me the question why did I leave the Adams Express Company.

Q. Why did you? Answer – Because I had an epileptic fit on the platform.

Q. Why did you leave the Washington Steel and Ordnance Company? Answer – Because I had a fit and touched the motor. The man protected me, and when a new man came on I had to leave.

Why did he go? Answer – That is a question I don’t know. I don’t know why he had to go.

Q. When you made application to the Adams Express Company they ask you if you had any serious illness, and you said no; was that the truth or not? Answer – It wouldn’t have been the truth after the accident.

Q. This application is dated the 12^th of May, 1915, and the accident was February 23, 1915? Answer – Yes; I told you previous to that if I had not said that I would have starved to death, which I would, and I am doing now.

Q. As a matter of fact, didn’t you receive $8.00 a week from the Union after you left the Washington Steel & Ordnance Company? Answer – I did absolutely not.

Q. How much did you pay Dr. Bacon for treating you? Answer – I don’t remember, but twenty-some dollars.

Q. How much did you pay Dr. Wine? Answer – He was paid by the railroad.

Q. How much did you pay Dr. Hooe? Answer – That is pending.