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Show w'as on the operating tabic for at least an hour" and a half, for a third of which time, a portion of the viscera was exposed and worked upon by tho attending physicians. Dr. Pidcock stated that Staples fought like a mad man while being placed on the operating table and that it required the assistance of all present pres-ent to tie him down. Even then he broke the leg straps and a sheet had to be used to secure him. He did not seem to be greatly Intoxicated but talked -irrationally 0f a desire to fight someone and also to bet on something. At times' he would quiet flown and apparently ap-parently resign himself to the application appli-cation of the anaesthetic. bWt would suddenly spring up and continue his struggles to free himself. The witness stated that the man's strength, notwithstanding the fact that his pulse was almost imperceptible, impercep-tible, was most unusual and hardly explainable ex-plainable beyond" the fact that he was a perfect specimen of manhood and po,ss,essed of unusual vitality. Even after the patient's return to consciousness con-sciousness from the anaesthetic, following fol-lowing the operation, and while as far as heart action was concerned, the man was dead, he renewed his. struggles strug-gles with great vigor but died about I two hours later: The witness described the operation which was a lemoval of fifteen Inches of the Intestine, the same having been perforated In five places b.' the bullet. bul-let. Witness stated that about forty- 1 eight per cent of those wounded In the abdomen by gunshots in the Civil war succumbed to their wounds, and, notwithstanding, the advance in surgery sur-gery since that time, fully forty-two per cent died from similar" wounds In ! the Spanish-American war. i DOCTORS ARE ASKED TO EXPLAIN DEFENSE TAKES NEW TACK IN ERNST HEARING, Attorney Inquires as to the Nature of . the Operation Performed Upon Staples, the Victim. The continuation today of the preliminary pre-liminary hearing of the case of Clarence Clar-ence Ernst, charged with the murder of Charles Staples, included the examination exam-ination of several witnesses who 'had previously testified in the coroner's Inquest. Dr. Pidcpck. who. with Dr. Forbes, performed tho operation on Staples shortly after the latter w-aij shot, testified regarding the condition of the man when he was brought to the hospital, and also regarding the operation and its results. . An effort was apparently- made by the defense to bring out the posslbll. ity that the wound was hot necessarily necessar-ily fatal In itself and that the operation opera-tion might have been the Immediate cause. It was shown that the patient |