Doctor Contradicts Huey Long Biographer

              Doctor contradicts Huey Long biographer 12-20-83
ST
By The Associated Press
Medical incompetence did not
hasten the death of gravely wounded
Huey Long in 1935, as his biographer
suggested, according to the former
dean of Louisiana State University
Medical School in Shreveport.
Writing in the current issue of ther
LSU Medical Alumni Quarterly, Dr.
Edgar Hull contradicts the story told
by the late T. Harry Williams in his
Pulitzer Prize-winning biography,
"Huey Long."
Hull was a 30-year-old LSU Medical
School intructor when Long, then a
U.S. Senator, was shot by Dr. Carl
Weiss on Sept. 8, 1935, at the state
Capitol in Baton Rouge. Long died two
days later.
In his book, Williams suggests that
the operating physician, Dr. Arthur
Vidrine, might have saved Long's life
?re it not for several crucial surgical
Times file photo
Dr. Edgar Hull
mistakes.
But Hull, now 79, says Long did not
die from incompetence and probably
could not have been saved.
Although Vidrine was not the sur-geon
of Long's choice, he went ahead
with surgery because he feared Long
might bleed to death while awaiting
other doctors.
According to Williams' book,
Vidrine examined Long's abdominal
organs and found little damage except
for two perforations in the colon.
Those, he said, were sutured and the
abdomen was closed.
Later, after Long's doctors arrived,
according to Williams, "They were
shocked to learn that Vidrine had not
catherized the bladder to see if it con-tained
blood. At their urging, a
catheter was inserted, and the urine
was found to be holding a great deal of
blood. A renal duct to the kidney had
obviously been hit by the bullet, and
Vidrine had not discovered this."
Another operation, Williams said,
was considered too dangerous.
But, according to Hull, who was at
the hospital during this time: "All this
stuff about (Long's doctor) telling
Vidrine that Huey was bleeding in-ternally
— it couldn't have been. If
Huey was bleeding, you know you
ought to go back in right now and stop
the bleeding. It just couldn't have been
the case."
Hull suggested the bleeding might
have resulted from repeated
catheterization and said he re-members
only a small amount of
blood in only one urine specimen. A
urology professor examined Long,
Hull said.
"He (the urologist inserted needles
into both perirenal spaces. I was there
when he did it.
"And he said, There is no bleeding
around his kidney or from his kidneys,
you can forget that.' I heard him say
that and he left. So all this stuff... that
Huey bled to death is not true.
"Another reason I know it is not true
is that we were doing the blood counts
on Huey. He was not bleeding to death.
He was dying with fulminating per-itonitis
(an infection)."
Hull said the cause of Long's death
might have been determined had an
autopsy been performed, as he sug-gested
at the time.
"So I said (to one of the doctors)...
'There ought to be an autopsy because
there is going to be all kinds of talk
about what killed him.' And he said,
'Well, let's go ask Arthur.'."
Vidrine consented to the autopsy,
Hull said.
But Hull said Dr. E.L. Sanderson, a
Long ally and head of Shreveport's
Charity Hospital, objected.
Said Hull: "He (Sanderson) walked
into the room and Dr. Vidrine said, 'Dr.
Sanderson, we're just going to speak to
Rose (Long's wife) about an autopsy on
Huey.'
"Sanderson said, 'Oh, no, we must
not violate his sacred body.'
"Those were Sanderson's words and
I said to myself, 'Oh, hell' But I didn't
speak up. I was a coward. But there
was Sanderson and he was 20 or 30
years older than I was; he had a beard
and I was a youngster, so I kept my
mouth shut."
Hull said Williams never contacted
him during his research on the book.
"Maybe he didn't know I was there,"
he said. "He probably didn't."
Hull said he did meet Williams at a
Baton Rouge party and told him of the
"errors."
"I said, 'You should have talked to
me.' And he said, 'I didn't know you
were ther ""