Lexi4,
The "H" word WAS used by his doctors. Please see the NY Time article of Nov. 10, 1912 which I posted in full. That can not be more clear.
Yes.. The "H" word was used by the New York Times and the newspaper did attribute it, incorrectly, to the doctors. In actual fact, however, the "H" word most definitely was *NOT* used by Alexei's doctors in that very same palace announcement that the New York Times was reporting.
This would not be the first time in the Romanov story that the New York Times had managed to get things wrong. Six years later, in December of 1918, that very same New York Times had reported that Nicholas had been taken to a secret trial just three hours before he was shot alone.. and that Alexandra and Alexei were then driven to a secret location. The same journalist who had reported that obviously spurious claim that Nicholas had been given brief secret trail immediately before his death would later be named as the new Dean of Journalism at Columbia University and Secretary of the Pultizer Prize Committee in 1931.
NY Times Oct 23, 1912:
"The Czarowitch Alexis is lying rather seriously ill at the imperial hunting lodge of Spala, Russian Poland
as the result of an accident on Oct. 15".
October 15 new style is October 2 old style... the date of Alexei's carriage ride. Occurring October 15 N/S and reported in New York on October 23 N/S... a delay of eight days.
NY Times Oct 25, 1912:
"His Imperial Highness is now suffering from peritonitis.
It is impossible to ascertain the real cause of his illness." October 25 new style is October 12 old style, and here the NY Times is reporting peritonitis when we now know that Alexei was already two days into his recovery after the fever had broken on October 10 O/S.. October 23rd N/S ... showing us again how much of a delay there was between the date of the actual events and the transmission of the story to New York
NY Times Oct. 26, 1912:
"The secrecy with respect to the injuries from which the Crown Prince is suffering
has bred a crop of sensational rumors."
.. and it still is a
sensational rumour to this very day.
NY Times Nov 9, 1912:
"The medical publication Hospital
commenting on the recent pronouncement of the Czar's physicians that the Czarevich has hemophilia says the malady was frequently observed by scientists among European Royal families in the early and middle ages"
We've all seen the "recent pronouncement of the Czar's physicians" that the New York Times was referring to in its report of Nov 9, 1912. It's the very same pronouncement that was issued by the Minister of the Imperial Court Baron Fredericks just six days before that New York Times report... on October 21 of 1912 O/S.. November 3 N/S... that carries the names of the four doctors Raukhfus, Federov, Botkin, and Ostrogorsky...
...and we all know that the "pronouncement of the Czar's physicians" most definitely does *NOT* use the word "haemophilia". However, it does use the words "significant anemia" which is not the same thing. (For our readers who have a hardback copy of "A Lifelong Passion" handy, the "pronouncement" that the New York Times was reporting can be found in the chapter on the year 1912 on pages 359 and 360.)
I could go to great length to explain to how the fledgling News Wire Services operated in the early days of the past century, many long decades before the advent of satellites and the internet... tell you in detail how news stories are edited in bunches as they move from one major news bureau to the next and are sent to the customer newspapers at regularly scheduled intervals every day. I could also explain how newspaper stories are written and edited to attract the readers' attention while at the same time maintaining brevity for reasons of limited space on the page...
... but you'll doubtless go to great efforts to try shooting that down too... so I won't bother.
... and you still haven't said anything about the fact that the text of that New York Times article makes it clear that its authors were obviously mixing the separate stories of both haemophilia and porphyria in the Royal family line and describing them as if they were a single disease.
JK