Gunshot Wound

[RJNorton]

Jerry, I do not know. Much of this stuff is all Greek to me. Last year Dr. Houmes was kind enough to send me information on a 2009 University of Maryland Shock Trauma conference in which doctors discussed/debated Lincoln's condition. One doctor said, "If Dr. Scalea's team had had access to Lincoln at the time of the assassination, the President might well have survived, albeit with right-sided hemiplegia and homonymous hemianopsia, along with persistent dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dysphasia." Huh?

Years ago, when students wrote me through my website asking if Lincoln might have survived with modern techniques, I would always answer "no." But over the last several years I've been more open to the possibility of what Bill said above, and I simply tell the students that doctors themselves discuss/debate this issue.