Chapter Two

• Author: Richard D. Schneider
• Pages: 23-30

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Cae T

   conscious, Edward Drummond requested of the

crowd which had quickly gathered that he be conveyed to his broth-

er’s bank a short distance away in Charing Cross Road. Drummond’s

brother Harvey sent immediately for an apothecary by the name of

Richard Jackson who was known to Drummond’s family and whose

shop was located nearby. Upon examining the wound, Jackson found

that the bullet had penetrated the skin of Drummond’s back, through

the coat and undergarments, but, not having the necessary instruments,

he could not trace it further. As Drummond did not seem too debili-

tated by loss of blood, Jackson advised Harvey that his brother should

immediately be moved to his own residence in Grosvenor Street.

By ve o’clock, less than an hour after the shooting, Drummond

was being tended to by George Guthrie and Bransby Blake Cooper,

two of England’s most eminent surgeons. ough unable to nd the

bullet at rst, they turned Drummond on his back and discovered it

about a half inch below the skin in the lower portion of his chest.

Having no operating instruments at hand, Guthrie (a former war sur-

geon whose specialty was gunshot wounds) used a lancet to make an

incision; Bransby Cooper extracted the bullet which, although it had

ripped through Drummond’s diaphragm, was thought by both doc-

tors not to be life-threatening. Indeed, they notied the press soon

after that the bullet had been removed, that none of Drummond’s vital

parts had been injured, and that they had every reason to believe their

patient was “doing very well.”

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   attempted assassination sent shock waves throughout

England, many believing that M’Naughten’s intended target was the