Lincoln's 1865 Autopsy Report and Death Certificate

[Houmes]

(05-21-2014 08:11 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  

(05-21-2014 02:03 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!?

It is unlikely President Lincoln saw or heard Booth. Henry Rathbones's statement on April 17th ("R" R.B. {JAO} P74 1865) in Edwards and Steers The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence p1080-82 states he did not realize Booth was in the room until only after he heard the gunshot, looked over and saw Booth standing there.

President Lincoln never felt anything and was immediately comatose. The muzzle velocity of a .41 caliber deringer is approximately 400 feet/second. The fastest nerves (surrounded by an insulating myelin sheath to increase speed of conduction) inside the brain send chemical messengers at an average speed of 393 feet/second. The bullet would have been out in the Ford's Theatre audience before Lincoln would have felt it, if he had been conscious.

The theory of germs causing infection was unheard of until Joseph Lister published the concept in 1867. Few Civil War surgeons washed their hands between or before operations, they merely wiped their hands and surgical instruments and moved on. Hygiene was notoriously poor, explaining why infection killed more soldiers than battle wounds.

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(05-22-2014 01:41 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  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.

The comparison with Gabrielle Gifford's has frequently been compared to President Lincoln's, but her wound was totally different, except for the fact that they were both wounded on the left side. Her wound tract was much higher in the left side of the brain, missing the vital central structures. It is much more lateral, in addition. This is proven by the fact that she never lost consciousness and was able to follow commands during her initial examination arriving at the hospital. Google pictures of her and you can see where the skin flap on her forehead is, at the bullet site where they had to remove part of her skull to prevent swelling. Lincoln's wound, if the bullet had exited the brain, was much more near the midline and would have been just slightly above the eye socket.