Lincoln's embalmment

[loetar44]

(11-29-2014 05:43 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(11-29-2014 03:12 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hi Eva. Twenty Days includes what Dr. Curtis wrote:

"...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 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 of presence makes all the immeasurable difference between an inert mass of matter owing obedience to no laws but those governing the physical and chemical forces of the universe, and on the other hand, living brain by whose silent, subtle machinery a world may be ruled. The weighing of the brain...gave approximate results only, since there was 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."

But I am not seeing anything specific about what happened to the brain after weighing.

Thank you, Roger. Well, I am very sure I read somewhere it was replaced into the skull (and this would make sense to me), I'll try to find.

(11-29-2014 02:56 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(11-29-2014 02:24 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  Were they placed back in the skull?

AFAIK yes - now where did I read this? Perhaps in 20 Days?!

Sorry, I have to withdraw this as a statement as I can't find what I seemed to recall. (I would still consider this the most likely modus operandi.)

I just found this:

The New York Tribune, April 27, 1865 gives a contemporary account of the funeral train trip from Albany to Buffalo and the arrival at Buffalo. In a second dispatch is said the following:

“As erroneous statements have been in the press, it is necessary to say on the authority of the embalmer and undertaker, that no perceptible change has taken place in the body of the late President since we left Washington. The Washington physicians removed a part of the brain only for the autopsy BUT THIS WAS REPLACED, so that no part of the body whatever is now deficient."