Laura Keene dress

[Steve]

Here's Dr. Leale's 1909 account of Keene in the box:

While we were waiting for Mr. Lincoln to gain strength Laura Keene, who had been taking part in the play, appealed to me to allow her to hold the President's head. I granted this request and she sat on the floor of the box and held his head on her lap.

Here's a link to the full 1909 account to read the quote in context:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24088/24...4088-h.htm

You can also compare that account with Leale's 1865 account:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

[RJNorton]

Strange there is no mention of Keene's presence in the 1865 account.

In 2006 I 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."

Here is a capsule of the research this doctor sent me:

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"If I can go on to you about M-to-M (because that is what I will be writing about) then the chequered history is:

1. Used by midwives, apparently since antiquity
2. 1732 Re-introduced by Wm Tossach's effective demonstration
3. Mid C18, adopted by Humane Socs, including the late-founded ones in the USA (and endorsed in 1788 by Mass. Humane Soc [HS] and 1791 by Philadelphia HS). Yet
4. 1782. Advised against by [what later became] the Royal HS (London)
5. Condemned, in effect, by French Academy of Sciences, Paris, 1829, after they accepted their commissioned studies findings that all positive pressure ventilation was dangerous
6. 1837 Condemned by the Royal HS also
7. thereafter until "rediscovery" in the 1940s, virtually abandoned and forgotten except among midwives, some obstetricians and some C20 anesthetists.

So we have CAL fitting in between 6 &7. Hence my surprise and wonderment as to however did he come by such an out-of-favour method of resus, being just medically qualified..."

***************************************

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 in the 1909 address (according to this New Zealand doctor).

[Steve]

Roger, I've always guessed that the discrepancy was due to the fraility of memory over 40 years later. With Leale misremembering with more contemporary (1909) medical procedures.

However, the notion that Leale provided some type of artificial respiration seems to not only be not mentioned but contradicted by his 1865 account:

As soon as I removed my finger a slight oozing of blood followed and his breathing became more regular and less stertorous.

But just now posting on this thread and reading over the 1909 passage, I realize we've been reading, discussing, and debating it through a present-day lens instead thinking about it through a 1909 lens.

Leale gave his talk knowing that he was later going to try to publish it. He gives a detailed step-by-step description on how to provide artificial respiration to someone who has stopped or has trouble breathing. It's so detailed, in fact, that it comprises three paragraphs of the speech in its printed form.

Think about medical treatment and the majority of the public's knowledge of first aid practices in 1909. There's no 911 service, no automobile ambulance services, and no movies or TV shows or visual media with characters performing first aid techniques. At the time people would fetch a doctor for a house call. If a person has trouble or stopped breathing fetching a doctor may take too much time.

I'm wondering if Leale inserted the description of artificial respiration into his account hoping that some readers, who wouldn't normally read something on first aid techniques, would remember enough about artificial respiration if they were in an emergency situation where they could keep a patient alive long enough for a doctor to arrive.

It would be analogous to say, telling people to time chest compressions to the BeeGee's or a character doing the heimlich maneuver on a TV show or movie. A vivid description which would grab readers' attention. Maybe Leale thought the potential benefits to the public would outweigh the desire for accuracy.

[RJNorton]

(04-04-2022 01:36 PM)Steve Wrote:  Roger, I've always guessed that the discrepancy was due to the fraility of memory over 40 years later. With Leale misremembering with more contemporary (1909) medical procedures.

I agree, Steve. But, if true, he's not the only one who did some embellishing (or worse). For example, in the many years following the assassination over 20 men claimed (or were given credit) to have helped carry the stricken President across the street from Ford's Theatre to the Petersen House. Lincoln was a tall man, but not that tall!

Once again, IMO Dr. Leale is a hero despite some likely "storytelling" in his 1909 address.

[RJNorton]

(04-04-2022 02:59 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(04-04-2022 01:36 PM)Steve Wrote:  Roger, I've always guessed that the discrepancy was due to the fraility of memory over 40 years later. With Leale misremembering with more contemporary (1909) medical procedures.

I agree, Steve. But, if true, he's not the only one who did some embellishing (or worse). For example, in the many years following the assassination over 20 men claimed (or were given credit) to have helped carry the stricken President across the street from Ford's Theatre to the Petersen House. Lincoln was a tall man, but not that tall!

Once again, IMO Dr. Leale is a hero despite some likely "storytelling" in his 1909 address.

Many thanks to Steve for sending this article. Steve writes, "I have an article to post to the Forum. It's from page 26 of the 25 Nov. 1906 edition of the Indianapolis Star. Another man, named Andrew J. Smith, also claimed to help carry Lincoln to Petersen House. He also says that he was on the detail when they executed the conspirators.

Just to clarify something which isn't mentioned in the article. I looked up Smith's service and he was mustered out of F Co. 5th Kentucky Infantry on 14 Sept. 1864 and then enlisted in A Co. 4th US Veteran Volunteers."

I will add Andrew J. Smith to the list of the names I have collected. In the many years following the assassination, these men claimed (or were given credit) to have helped carry the stricken President across the street from Ford's Theatre to the Petersen House:

Dr. Charles Leale, Dr. Charles Taft, Dr. Albert King, Albert Daggett, Augustus Clark, Capt. Obadiah Jackson Downing, Capt. Edwin Bedee, Major Isaac Walker McClay, W.H. Flood, Frederick Johnstone, Jacob J. Soles, John Corey, Jacob Griffiths, William Sample, William McPeck, John Weaver, Joseph Hazelton, Capt. Owen, Capt. John Sears, Capt. John Busby, Capt. Oliver C. Gatch, George A. Clark, Thomas Gourlay, William Greer, and newly added Andrew J. Smith.

[Steve]

Wow what a list! I'm seeing a few of those names for the first time. I can think of 2 others that you missed:

1. Dr. Ezra Abbott - he was sitting in the Family Circle section and couldn't reach the box to help treat Lincoln in the theater. Years later he claimed that he reached the box just as they were about to move the President and helped carry him across the street.

2. Dr. Charles Davenport Gatch - After his death, his brother Oliver claimed Charles went with him to the box and treated the President. This is contradicted by Dr Leale's contemporary accounts. Charles is on the list of doctors treating (or at least seeing) the President at Petersen House in contemporary newspaper accounts, though.

[RJNorton]

Many thanks, Steve. I shall add those names to the list.