30 June 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: OKeU, UCCL 01245)
Yours just received. It will disabuse Mrs. Warner’s mind of her mistaken notion concerning Dr Roosa. n 1explanatory note
I wish to ask you a professional question: “Nell” has an opportunity to spend the summer at the seaside; thinks that the change & the strength she would gain, would enable her to make up her mind to have that tremendous operation performed. Mrs. Simons is hoping that you will agree that this is a good thing to do. Will you please drop me a line & an◇ opinion?2explanatory note
Daniel Bennett St. John Roosa (1838–1908), an eye and ear specialist and president of the American Otological Society from 1874 to 1876, was a professor of ophthalmology at the University of the City of New York. Neither Agnew’s letter to Clemens nor any record of Lilly Warner’s “mistaken notion” has been found.
Agnew’s response is not known to survive. In the fall of 1875 he performed the “tremendous operation” to remove Nell Kinearney’s eyes. In a letter of 26 October 1875, her sister, Annie Simons, thanked Olivia for her help in arranging the operation, saying that words were inadequate to express her gratitude (CU-MARK). Probably she never became aware of the further assistance Olivia offered in a letter of 26 November 1875 to Agnew:
It must have seemed strange to you, Dr Agnew, when you found that we had not told Mrs Simons that you made no charge for your visit here— The reason that we did not tell her was that she had been very much annoyed when she found that Dr Bowen was not being paid for his services, she was very unwilling to receive charity from a stranger, she felt that some of his neglect came from the fact that she was a charity patient— So we thought we would not tell her until after the operation I think we did not do the wisest way but at the time it seemed to us best.
We hope you will send us the bill for the operation— We know that you must have innumerable cases of this kind, and we of course have not so let us defray the expense of this one— (OKeU)
MS, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio (OKeU).
L6 , 502–503.
purchased in 1968 from the Gilman Bookstore in Crompond, New York.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.