Clara Harris's Bloody Dress

[RJNorton]

(11-26-2013 06:26 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  The Laura Keene in the box issue was kicked around here before and one of the things that makes it so confusing is the Clara Harris/ Dr. Leale accounts being polar opposites. Even though Leale's account is from 44 years later, he was not an old man at that time.

Joe, thanks for calling a man of 67 "not old." Some assassination books say that Dr. Leale employed both mouth-to mouth artificial respiration and closed chest cardiac massage. I have had contact with a New Zealand intensivist who feels Leale did not actually use mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration. This doctor gives three main reasons for his opinion: (1) Leale makes no mention of mouth-to mouth artificial respiration in his 1867 report to Congress. Only in 1909, when Leale gave another account, do we first learn of his claim of artificial respiration and a crude form of closed chest cardiac massage. In 1909 Leale was 67 and trying to recall events from 44 years previous. (2) According to this doctor's study of the history of critical care and resuscitation, mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration was totally out of favor as a resuscitation maneuver in 1865. (3) None of the other people who rushed to Lincoln's aid, including the other doctors who arrived in the state box, independently corroborated Leale's claims.

Back in 1995, Dr. Richard A. R. Fraser, writing in "American Heritage," noted that "Leale’s account of the assassination submitted in 1867 made no mention of resuscitation, but in 1909 he delivered an address in New York giving a detailed description of practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Lincoln after he probed the wound. It is strange that Leale did not include this in his first account, which omitted no other important details of the President’s treatment. I am more inclined to give credence to this earlier version, recorded in Leale’s own hand the day Lincoln died."

All of this is not meant to discredit Dr. Leale and his efforts on Abraham Lincoln's behalf. I certainly consider Dr. Leale a hero. However, it seems as least possible that he did not do everything he claimed to do. I will admit that this doctor's letter to me may be influencing my feeling on the possibility of Laura Keene not really being in the box. If the doctor is right, and Leale embellished on his treatment of Lincoln in his 1909 address, could he also have embellished on who was present in the State Box? I do not know; I simply offer this doctor's opinion to the group as food for thought.