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May 18, 2007
What if?
Some doctor is giving a presentation at a conference about Lincoln's chances of survival if modern medical care was available when John Wilkes Booth shot him:
Abraham Lincoln might have survived being shot if today's medical technology had existed in 1865.
Given that scenario, the question is whether Lincoln would have recovered well enough to return to office, says a doctor and historian who planned to speak Friday at an annual University of Maryland School of Medicine conference on the deaths of historic figures.
While the conference has traditionally re-examined the deaths of historic figures to determine if the diagnosis of the time was correct, this year's event asks if Lincoln could have been saved and what impact that would have had.
Thomas Scalea, the physician in chief at the University of Maryland's Shock Trauma Center, said brain injuries are unpredictable but Lincoln would have stood a good chance of surviving.
That's all well and good... I think Lincoln could have pulled through, too. This reminds me of President James Garfield's demise, which most definitely would have been prevented by modern medical care. The late, great website History House (which REALLY needs to come back) describes the shenanigans that occured after Charles Guiteau popped Garfield in the back:
At 5:30 PM that day, the doctors removed Garfield's blood-stained suit. They gave him a glass of champagne, which he promptly threw up, and continued to throw up every half hour until morning. Navy Surgeon General Wales stuck his finger in the wound, and proclaimed the bullet had hit the President's liver. Some time early the next morning, Dr. Frank H. Hamilton of New York stuck his finger in the wound, but encountered a clot and thought better of it. In all, some fifteen doctors had their fingers in Garfield's side over the course of the evening. A medical journal editorial offered, "If there is any criticism to be offered from a medical point of view, it is that there were too many physicians in attendance during the first 24 hours... there is always danger to the patient when too many medical heads are put together."
...
Garfield's diet was not one for a man with a poor stomach. He received beefsteak, eggs, and brandy daily. Soon he was vomiting continuously, and to stave off his weight loss (he had lost some 80 pounds in six short weeks), his doctors opted for nutritional enemas. They mixed together an egg, one ounce of boullion, one and a half ounces of milk, a half ounce of whiskey, and ten drops of opium and inserted this stew into the President's rectum. Needless to say, this strategy proved ineffective. The doctors operated to remove the bullet, and, not finding it, opted instead to insert pus drainage tubes. Someone stole bone fragments taken from the President's body afterwards, perhaps as momentoes. The doctors released promising news to the press, and recorded their own dismal expectations in their private journals. The press, to its credit, quickly grew skeptical of the reports and suspected the President's death was near.
entry no. 855
Posted by oz115 at May 18, 2007 02:45 PM
Comments
That Garfield medical treatment seems so ridiculously primitive. Even for the 1880s. Those doctors were just guessing. It's hard to believe he survived as long as he did. It makes me wonder if people 120 years from now will think our own medical treatments were primitive.
Posted by: Marie at May 19, 2007 07:36 PM