Lincoln's 1865 Autopsy Report and Death Certificate

[BettyO]

Found these online - original documents of Lincoln's 1865 autopsy report and death certificate - interesting to see these actual documents.

They are to be found at:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Lin...ion&page=5

Fascinating stuff! CLICK HERE

[RJNorton]

Thank you for posting this, Betty. I had only previously seen the text of Dr. Woodward's report and Dr. Curtis' letter to his mother. Dr. Stone's report was new.

[Jim Garrett]

Wasn't W.S.Thompson the pharmacist used by the Lincoln family and did David Herold work there briefly?

[BettyO]

Yes! I thought that the name sounded mighty familiar and a bell rang that yes, it was probably Herold's former employer.

[RJNorton]

I found that Dr. Lattimer had written about this report back in 1965. Part of Dr. Lattimer's article can be read here. I do not recall him referencing Dr. Stone's report of the autopsy in his book Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations.

[L Verge]

(05-21-2014 08:04 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thank you for posting this, Betty. I had only previously seen the text of Dr. Woodward's report and Dr. Curtis' letter to his mother. Dr. Stone's report was new.

And Dr. Stone's report seems to be more detailed than what Dr. Woodward sent to the government. Stone was Lincoln's family physician, whereas Woodward and Curtis were military surgeons who had seen a lot more head wounds and rather curtly made their report. I wonder if Blaine can add to this... I would love to read the rest of Dr. Lattimer's JAMA article from 1965.

Dr. Joseph Janvier Woodward is an interesting figure in the field of Civil War medicine and the doctor who began what is now the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Surratt House has one of his medical boxes that he used for shipping his instruments and supplies, a donation many years ago from a descendant.

The old school teacher in me was surprised to see that the legendary Ralph Newman of the Abraham Lincoln Bookstore misspelled a word that is so commonly misspelled even today. Instead of "you're" (meaning you are), he wrote "your" in his note that is at the end of the link that Betty found.

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Also found this online that is easier to understand: http://www.galenpress.com/extras/extra29.htm It appears that Dr. Barnes is the only one to claim that the bullet was lodged behind the right eye.

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This is what I had been searching for previously: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...edical.htm I knew that Blaine had discussed the Lincoln wound extensively in talks at the Surratt conferences, but I remembered an interview with him that I had read. Finally found it! I'm sure that Blaine also had conversations with the late-Dr. Lattimer, so I hope he will expound on this thread.

[LincolnToddFan]

(05-21-2014 01:03 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  I found that Dr. Lattimer had written about this report back in 1965. Part of Dr. Lattimer's article can be read here. I do not recall him referencing Dr. Stone's report of the autopsy in his book Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations.

Hi Roger, I read that book and I kind of wish I hadn't. Dr. Lattimer speculates that AL might have seen his killer out of his peripheral vision at the very last second, and attempted to flinch away from Booth by turning his head very sharply to the left.

That would account for the fact the assassin approached from the right but the bullet struck AL from the back left. It's horrifying. I like to imagine the poor guy simply never knew what hit him.

Also the autopsy report(the original) has blood stains. The doctors didn't bother to even wash their hands after they were done!?

[Cliff Roberts]

Thanks a lot Betty, for posting these historic documents, especially the fascinating report of Dr. Stone which I'd never seen before. Understanding the exact track of the bullet helps enormously in reconstructing the precise positions of both Lincoln and Booth when the shot was fired.

If I'm reading the typed version of Dr. Stone's report correctly, the bullet entered the back of Lincoln's head one inch to the left of the midline and traveled on a slight upward course, forward and slightly to the right, lodging behind the left orbit. Bits of skull were driven deep into the brain, causing massive tissue destruction and swelling, which fractured both orbits and resulted in the right eye protruding somewhat. This is probably what led to the mistaken belief that the bullet traveled diagonally through the brain lodging behind the right orbit. This should clear that up once and for all. It certainly fits with Booth shooting Lincoln while the President was looking to his left. If you could freeze the action at that exact point, you could run a line (perhaps a laser beam) from Lincoln's left orbit, slightly downward and to the right, to the back of his skull, then back 6 to 12 inches to the muzzle of Booth's derringer. This leads me to believe that if Booth entered through the door to Box 8, he was holding the pistol in his left hand, with the knife in his right. Had he slipped in through the door to Box 7, he would be in a position where he could have fired with either hand. We'll never know for certain on that!

At any rate, thanks again, Betty.

[LincolnToddFan]

It all sounds horrifying, ghastly. Dr. Lattimer wrote that the .44 caliber bullet struck the back of the president's skull with the force of a sledgehammer. I suppose that is what shattered both his eye sockets?

I can't imagine him or anyone else surviving such an injury, but of course a few doctors have suggested that modern medicine might have saved AL. They note that former congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's brain injury was almost identical to Lincoln's, except the bullet that hit her brain passed out of her skull, Lincoln's did not.

In any case, if he had survived even with 21st century medicine he would have been a much, much different man...partially blind and completely deaf, subject to seizures and with impaired motor skills.

The legendary speeches would also have been a thing of the past.

Thanks much, Betty. Those docs are fascinating and sobering to read.

[RJNorton]

(05-22-2014 12:41 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  I can't imagine him or anyone else surviving such an injury, but of course a few doctors have suggested that modern medicine might have saved AL.

Hi Toia. wsanto (Dr. William Santo) of our forum is among the doctors who feel this way. Here is a quote from a post Dr. Santo made on the forum last August:

"Assuming the bullet hadn't crossed the midline (per Dr. Woodward's report), Lincoln's entire right hemisphere was uninjured. The bullet did not significantly injure any major centers in the brain (except Broca's area that controls speech, and some motor and sensory regions). His right hemisphere could have potentially learned, with a lot of rehabilitation, some of the functions that were damaged on the left. I disagree that he would have survived as a "vegetable". He very well may have survived and been able think, learn, and communicate in a useful way."

I should emphasize that Bill is referring to 2014 medical knowledge, not 1865.

[RJNorton]

(05-21-2014 02:30 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I would love to read the rest of Dr. Lattimer's JAMA article from 1965.

Many thanks to Blaine Houmes for sending the entire article.

Click here and here.

[LincolnToddFan]

(05-22-2014 04:57 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-22-2014 12:41 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  I can't imagine him or anyone else surviving such an injury, but of course a few doctors have suggested that modern medicine might have saved AL.

Hi Toia. wsanto (Dr. William Santo) of our forum is among the doctors who feel this way. Here is a quote from a post Dr. Santo made on the forum last August:

"Assuming the bullet hadn't crossed the midline (per Dr. Woodward's report), Lincoln's entire right hemisphere was uninjured. The bullet did not significantly injure any major centers in the brain (except Broca's area that controls speech, and some motor and sensory regions). His right hemisphere could have potentially learned, with a lot of rehabilitation, some of the functions that were damaged on the left. I disagree that he would have survived as a "vegetable". He very well may have survived and been able think, learn, and communicate in a useful way."

I should emphasize that Bill is referring to 2014 medical knowledge, not 1865.

He was physically an astonishingly strong human being, that's for sure. It's fascinating to speculate.

Historian/author Jay Winik makes a point in his book "1865: The Month That Saved America." Abraham Lincoln, 56 years old and in a state of profound physical and emotional exhaustion on April 14 1865, was still able to hang on for a little over 9 hours with a bullet deep in his brain.

John Wilkes Booth was less than half Lincoln's age and survived for two hours with a bullet in his neck.

[maharba]

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the contributions of all Symposium participants in their information...but none of the links 'clicked through' for my older computer. And so, I fall back instead on my old scrapbooks and clippings picked up from junk sales and such. This week, I found another 'nest' of thrown out Lincoln material and it said what I had heard before about Lincoln shortly before he was executed. A lot of times with those old clippings and articles you can put them in the freezer and carefully separate 'stuck together' thin paper articles. But it said basically that the day before (being killed) Lincoln had shaken a lot of hands and so his right hand/arm was very significantly swollen more so than the left hand. I believe it says that the autopsy of Abraham Lincoln even noted that his right hand was much larger in appearance (from that cause) then the left hand. It almost, to my own scant physiological understanding, indicates a diminished draining of lymph away from Lincoln's right arm/hand --from the long day of handshaking--and may point to perhaps some physiological impairment of Lincoln. As he went on to the Ford Theater and sitting there in the old rocking chair relaxing, I wonder if that (lack of full strength in the right arm) was a contributing factor in not being to respond quickly to protect himself. Possibly, this has been talked about before?

[Eva Elisabeth]

I've said it before (to no avail I'm aware) - old scrapbooks and clippings may be an interesting read but also contain a lot of mere fabulations and embellishments. You "believe it says" means you aren't even sure about that.

This article (or your belief) is wrong about the autopsy as well as the timing of the handshaking story/stories.

Roger has an excellent site on the autopsy here:
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln60.html

As I expect this link not to work for you either I quote from Roger's excellent site:


"Dr. Curtis and Dr. Woodward did the actual work of the autopsy. Dr. Curtis' informal description of the autopsy (in a letter to his mother) is as follows (Dr. Woodward's formal report follows Dr. Curtis' description):

'The room...contained but little furniture: a large, heavily curtained bed, a sofa or two, bureau, wardrobe, and chairs comprised all there was. Seated around the room were several general officers and some civilians, silent or conversing in whispers, and to one side, stretched upon a rough framework of boards and covered only with sheets and towels, lay - cold and immovable - what but a few hours before was the soul of a great nation. The Surgeon General was walking up and down the room when I arrived and detailed me the history of the case. He said that the president showed most wonderful tenacity of life, and, had not his wound been necessarily mortal, might have survived an injury to which most men would succumb...Dr. Woodward and I proceeded to open the head and remove the brain down to the track of the ball. The latter had entered a little to the left of the median line at the back of the head, had passed almost directly forwards through the center of the brain and lodged. Not finding it readily, we proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger - dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world's history as we may perhaps never realize....silently, in one corner of the room, I prepared the brain for weighing. As I looked at the mass of soft gray and white substance that I was carefully washing, it was impossible to realize that it was that mere clay upon whose workings, but the day before, rested the hopes of the nation. I felt more profoundly impressed than ever with the mystery of that unknown something which may be named 'vital spark' as well as anything else, whose absence or presence makes all the immeasurable difference between an inert mass of matter owning obedience to no laws but those covering the physical and chemical forces of the universe, and on the other hand, a living brain by whose silent, subtle machinery a world may be ruled.
The weighing of the brain... gave approximate results only, since there had been some loss of brain substance, in consequence of the wound, during the hours of life after the shooting. But the figures, as they were, seemed to show that the brain weight was not above the ordinary for a man of Lincoln's size.'

Dr. Woodward's formal report of the autopsy, written to the Surgeon General, is as follows:

Surgeon General's Office
Washington City D.C.
April 15, 1865
Brigadier General J.K. Barnes
Surgeon General U.S.A.
General:

I have the honor to report that in obedience to your orders and aided by Assistant Surgeon E. Curtis, U.S.A., I made in your presence at 12 o'clock this morning an autopsy on the body of President Abraham Lincoln, with the following results: The eyelids and surrounding parts of the face were greatly ecchymosed and the eyes somewhat protuberant from effusion of blood into the orbits.
There was a gunshot wound of the head around which the scalp was greatly thickened by hemorrhage into its tissue. The ball entered through the occipital bone about one inch to the left of the median line and just above the left lateral sinus, which it opened. It then penetrated the dura matter, passed through the left posterior lobe of the cerebrum, entered the left lateral ventricle and lodged in the white matter of the cerebrum just above the anterior portion of the left corpus striatum, where it was found.
The wound in the occipital bone was quite smooth, circular in shape, with bevelled edges. The opening through the internal table being larger than that through the external table. The track of the ball was full of clotted blood and contained several little fragments of bone with small pieces of the ball near its external orifice. The brain around the track was pultaceous and livid from capillary hemorrhage into its substance. The ventricles of the brain were full of clotted blood. A thick clot beneath the dura matter coated the right cerebral lobe.
There was a smaller clot under the dura matter of the left side. But little blood was found at the base of the brain. Both the orbital plates of the frontal bone were fractured and the fragments pushed upwards toward the brain. The dura matter over these fractures was uninjured. The orbits were gorged with blood. I have the honor of being very respectfully your obedient servant.
J.J. Woodward
Assistant Surgeon
U.S.A."

Dr. Curtis also wrote, "I was simply astonished at the showing of the nude remains, where well-rounded muscles built upon strong bones told the powerful athlete. Now did I understand the deeds of prowess recorded of the President's early days."

I think you may be mistaken by the incident of the casts of Lincoln’s hands made by Leonard Volk on May 20, 1860, two days after the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. Lincoln’s right hand was still swollen from shaking hands with supporters, and Volk noted that “the right hand appeared swollen as compared to the left,” and that “this difference is distinctly shown in the cast.”

The closest event to the assassination at which Lincoln shook "thousands of hands" was to my memory the public reception after the second inaugural, and Elizabeth Keckley in her book tells of "the right–hand glove that the President wears" at this event "bearing the marks of the thousands of hands that grasped the honest hand of Mr. Lincoln on that eventful night" being gifted to and cherished by her.

That this however couldn't still have had effected Lincoln on April 14 in a way you speculate shows the ax incident at City Point of April 8.
http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/200...08_a.shtml
(Let me know if the link doesn't work for you...)

Despite it wouldn't have made a difference as he was cowardly* shot from the back while, unarmed, unaware, enjoying and focussing on a play in front of him, sitting. (*I am applying the definition of "cowardly" here you repeatedly apply to Boston Corbett. Btw, Abraham Lincoln was assasinated, not executed.)

[RJNorton]

Maharba, generally speaking, the age of a computer should not cause all the links we post not to work on your computer. One thing to try is to download and install another browser. I assume you are using Internet Explorer. Please try downloading Firefox and/or Chrome, and then see if the links work. It's easy to find these other browsers by doing an internet search through Google, Yahoo, etc., so I won't post the links - you can find them yourself most easily.

How do you access the internet? Through a dial-up connection? If you are still using a dial-up connection this would cause many links to load so slowly that you just give up thinking the link does not work. Personally I kept a dial-up connection WAY too long despite my daughter's constant urging to upgrade. I wanted to save the money. Finally, many years ago, I gave in and had high speed internet access installed. All I can say is that is it well worth the cost. So, PLEASE get high speed and quit the dial-up, if that is what you have.

It's possible links don't work on your computer because it's become corrupted with a virus. A free program that can scan your entire system for viruses, malware, etc. is Malwarebytes. You can find the free version of this excellent malware-removal tool by doing a Google search. This program is very good at removing computer viruses, malware, etc.

Lastly, the operating system you are using could cause links not to work properly. This could happen if you are using an OS that is older than Windows XP. Examples would be: Windows 95, 98, or ME. I can tell you from my own experimentation that some websites nowadays won't work properly with those older operating systems. If this applies to you, please go out and purchase a newer OS such as Windows 7. Or better yet - buy a new computer with a modern OS already installed.

Eva's reply above is outstanding. Please read it carefully as it is a terrific reply to your question.