"I am a graduate of Northwestern University and have practiced over 25 years at Twin Falls in a general practice. I am acquainted with the plaintiff and have treated him. I commenced to treat him in the fall of 1928 when he came to me with trouble in breathing and a bad cough.
"Q. Did you make an examination of him? A. I examined him, his throat, head and nose and found an enormous amount of infection in the throat and nose, which could have predicated the cough. Following that time or around about that time I took Bennie into the room and had him stripped down to his waist and my observations there were of a man that was thin, poor, his spaces above and below the clavicular were very much thickened. His face was very red and synotic also his arms and feet. The respiratory center was rather abrupt. He was very round shouldered and stooped. His breathing was labored. I would have him take a long breath and it would produce a spasm of coughing. It was a hoarse cough and came in spasms very much like a whooping cough. He would almost get out of breath. It was a productive cough and he would raise a lot of sputum with that cough. I have seen, in my estimate in having him cough, he possibly would raise a teacup of sputum at each cleaning. Do you want me to continue with my full physical examination of this man?
"At a later time I think I went farther. I would say I have been his family physician since that time. He has been in my office on and off ever since. I have treated him. I think in the fall of 1930 or 1931 I made a physical examination of the plaintiff.
"Q. What were your findings on that examination? A. The findings of his chest was much like he had when he first come, but in the abdomen particularly when he was coughing, Bennie would wear a truss, and when he would cough it would produce a couple of lumps — a lump in each groin. These I interpreted to be a rupture produced by excessive coughing. This sputum he was spitting up was examined and found to be negative for T. B. but had an enormous lot of pus cells and it would indicate that the tissues and cells were being destroyed. There was also some blood in the sputum. There was a lot of râles through the base of his chest and more prominent in the left side; that is they extended higher. There was bronchial breathing and I had some x-ray pictures taken —
"Mr. Dawson: Just a minute. Did you take those pictures yourself?
"A. I took him to the laboratory and had him stripped right down and the technician there took the x-rays under my supervision and observation. The x-ray findings verified my physical findings. The bronchial tree and tubes of this man showed up in the x-ray picture about as plain as I have ever seen them show up when we have the stuff in them to take an x-ray picture. They showed up white fibrosis according to my interpretation of the bronchial tree. There were a few of the lymph nodes that were calcareous and showed up in the x-ray.
"Q. Now, Doctor, what effect upon a man's physical well being do these findings indicate? A. To my mind these findings incapacitate this man and put him in the class of total and permanent disability for labor, for work.
"Q. In what way do they affect him — how effect that result? A. There are several ways. We know from these findings that the blood stream that carries the blood and nutrition to the body is deprived of carrying it to the body, of carrying oxygen to the body.
"Q. What effect upon a man's ability to act does the failure of the body to get the needed oxygen have? A. Well I would illustrate it like this. If you were placed in a small room and all the oxygen taken out of the room — it would be something like that, you couldn't get enough oxygen to keep on breathing with. This man is being starved for want of oxygen. That destroys his vitality, his endurance, his alertness. The breathing would probably be more rapid, more irregular. It would probably be nature calling for more oxygen.
"Q. What in your judgment produces this violent coughing? A. The enormous amount of infection that this man was having in his nose and throat and bronchial tubes and besides that the destruction of those tissues as well as the fibrous formation around the bronchial tree and tubes to the lungs. This patient, the slightest irritation would produce the cough and expectoration. It clears off those waste products and you can secure a little more oxygen.
"Q. In the condition in which you found this plaintiff in 1928 state whether or not he was able to perform continuously any kind of labor? A. In my opinion he was not able to continuously carry on any labor that created any exertion to amount to anything.
"Q. What would you say as to his condition at the present time in that respect? A. I would say he is probably getting worse every year.
"Q. Doctor, you may assume that the plaintiff in this action, Benjamin F. Stephens was born in Indian Territory on or about the 12th day of July, 1881; that he was raised on a farm and never did any substantial amount of work or labor except farm work up to the time he enlisted in the army, Feb. 26, 1918. That in his schooling he advanced as far as the third grade reader and now can scarcely read, neither read nor write. As a young man he entered into his service and enjoyed going to dances and such amusements, enjoyed hunting and never suffered from coughs or colds or throat or lung trouble; that he worked during the farming season of every year from the time he was old enough to work until he entered the service and received the going wages for farm work in the community in which he lived and worked. That he pitched hay and worked around threshing machines, pitching bundles to the machines. At the time he enlisted in the service he weighed 122 pounds, was 5 feet 3½ inches high; that he never suffered pain or weakness in the knees or feet and never had any trouble with his lungs or bronchial tubes. He enlisted February 26, 1918, at Twin Falls, Idaho; that on this date before being inducted into the service, he passed a general physical examination by the government doctor who found head, chest, abdomen, extremities normal; heart normal, nose and throat normal, genito-urinary organs normal; hernia none; hemorrhoids none. Vision right eye 20/20 — 1; left eye 20/20x; hearing right ear normal; left ear normal; pyorrhea slight; curvature of spine slight, left. Hyperdosis slight both feet. That he went to the Fort Douglas, Utah, from Twin Falls; that while at practice throwing hand grenades he injured his thumb on the right hand which thumb still continues to give him pain; that he was not hospitalized but was marked `quarters' and just laid around; that he remained at Fort Douglas until the last of June when he was sent to Camp Funston and then to a development camp at Fort Riley and from there to Camp Merritt, New Jersey, and thence to Brest, France, and from there to the rest camp where he stayed about a week. From there he was taken to a station back of the front and here he was under shell fire. That he was in Company 353 Ambulance corps as stretcher bearer; that about six o'clock on the morning of October 26, 1918, while he was sleeping in a cave a shell exploded within about five feet of him, a fragment of the shell striking his helmet which rested on his head with such force he thought his head was cut open and that at the same time and by the same shell he was gassed. This gas he inhaled and it also came in contact with his eyes and neck; that he was shortly thereafter taken to base hospital 35 where he was treated; that at this base hospital 35 on October 30, 1918, the hospital record shows: `Gassed in action October 26, 1918. Diagnosis: Gas absorption of deleterious mustard, inhalation and surface contact in action.' Another report on the same day base hospital No. 8, A. E. F. shows: `Surface contact with deleterious gas, eyes and neck'; that for about four weeks he was unable to speak above a whisper and for three weeks he could not see and was confined in the hospital and under treatment from that time until January 5, 1918, when he was taken from the hospital in an ambulance to the transport boat which took him to Fox Hill, England. He was there put again in a hospital for about a week when he was taken in an ambulance to the transport which brought him across to New York where he was conveyed in an ambulance to the train which carried him to Fort Douglas, Utah, where he remained under medical treatment until his discharge from the army May 26, 1919, except for about two weeks just prior to his discharge when he was on a furlough at a friend's near Twin Falls, Mr. John Hollan's; that he returned from this furlough to...
