Bismarck goes on to say that the doctors who were treating the Crown Prince resolved at the end of May to carry out the removal of the larynx under an anæsthetic without having informed the Prince of their intention. The Chancellor, however, immediately raised objections; required that they should not proceed without the consent of the Prince; and, further, that as they were dealing with the successor to the throne, the consent of the head of the dynasty should also be obtained. The old Emperor, therefore, after being informed of the circumstances by Bismarck, forbade the doctors to carry out the operation without the consent of the Crown Prince.
It must be remembered, in considering the diagnosis of the German experts, that laryngology was at that time almost in its infancy, and it was natural that the Crown Princess should have clung desperately to the belief that a mistake had been made. Indeed, it is said that Professor Bergmann himself advised that the opinion of some other eminent throat specialist should be obtained before it was decided to have recourse to surgical interference.
This was the position when the eminent English throat specialist, Dr. (afterwards Sir) Morell Mackenzie was summoned. There is no need here to go over in detail the painful controversy which was engendered by this step, and which was embittered, not only by thorny questions of professional etiquette, but also by irrelevant political passions. Our purpose is rather to state the principal facts, and leave the reader to form his own conclusions.
The Crown Princess was widely believed to have insisted that the English specialist should be called in simply because of her English prejudices, and this was considered an affront to the medical profession in Germany. As a matter of fact a list of the most eminent throat specialists in Europe was drawn up. One was a Frenchman, another a Viennese, and the third was Morell Mackenzie. The Frenchman was discarded for political reasons, the Viennese for other reasons, and it was a consensus of political and medical opinion which led to the choice of the English specialist.
On May 20, 1887, Dr. Morell Mackenzie arrived in Berlin. The German physicians informed him that they believed they had to deal with a cancer, but they desired his diagnosis. Mackenzie performed more than one small operation to serve as a basis for a microscopic examination, which was entrusted to Professor Virchow, probably the greatest physiologist then living. It was Virchow who reported, to the exultant relief and joy of the Crown Princess, that, while he found a certain thickening of the membrane, he had "discovered nothing to excite suspicions of a wider and graver disease."