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Baby Dies; Physician Upheld

From: Dr. Haiselden And The Bollinger Baby
Creator: n/a
Date: November 18, 1915
Publication: The Chicago Daily Tribune
Source: Available at selected libraries

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"But Hope's mother abandoned her in the German-American hospital. Her full name is Beulah Hope Wesley and she was 17 months old. She knows nothing but hospital life. Soon after she was with us we saw at the hospital that we had a very fine baby. Visitors began seeking a home for her and I decided that question by adopting Hope for my own.

55  

"The children are under the care of the matron at the hospital and the house-keeper is very capable. Until last May, when my mother passed away, the children were a comfort to her. I shall adopt more children, from time to time and bring them up as best I know. Hope is already a member of the infant class in the Methodist Sunday school and Dorothy attends church regularly."

56  

While Hope tapped the doctor's face in play the telephone rang and a hysterical woman started speaking her "mind" to the doctor. She continued her violent expression ten minutes after the surgeon moved away, refusing to listen to her harangue.

What One Woman Thinks
57  

"Let a man sized physician operate on that child," demanded the woman. "You're worse than a cannibal, and you should hear what the people are saying about you in the street cars and at the corners. Their talk is very much against you."

58  

"Well, there have been favorable comments, too," replied Dr. Haiselden. Then he turned away.

59  

"I have not slept," he said. "The telephone has rattled every minute of the day and night. The questions are all the same -- wishing to know the condition of the infant and why I refuse to let science save it. Others praise me for my stand. They tell me I have no conscience, and murderer is becoming a cognomen of mine.

60  

"But it is not all the same, as I told Dr. John Dill Robertson, commissioner of health, and I have only my conscience as a guide.

61  

Telegrams, notes, and congratulations along with abuse are showered upon the surgeon from all sides.

62  

"Congratulations for striking a live wire," said Dr. Frank Deacon to Dr. Haiselden over the telephone.

63  

"You are right," said a woman whose husband, the brother of a congressman, is in an insane asylum. "I have tried to have my 14 year old son sterilized, but have almost been kicked out of physicians' offices when I approached the subject."

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