Modern Medicine Might Have Saved Lincoln 281
Pcol writes "For the past 13 years the University of Maryland School of Medicine has presented a historical clinicopathological conference where they consider famous historical medical cases such as the death of Alexander the Great and composer Ludwig van Beethoven and provide a modern diagnosis and treatment in each case. This year Dr. Thomas M. Scalea, physician-in-chief for the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center discusses if the world's first center for trauma victims could have improved the outcome had Lincoln's assassination occurred in 2007. 'This could be a recoverable injury, with a reasonable expectation he would survive,' Scalea said, noting that assassin's weapon was relatively impotent compared to the firepower now on the streets today. The modern prognosis predicts that Lincoln might have conceivably recovered enough to return to the White House to complete his second term."
Energy / Velocity Compared.. (Score:4, Informative)
It consisted of a 130 grain lead bullet propelled at 425 ft/second and had a total energy of right around 52 ft. lbs.
Compare that to a modern day 40 S&W cartridge (used by most police today), that sends a 135 grain modern day Jacketed Hollow Point expanding bullet at a velocity of 1200 ft/second producing around 432 ft. lbs. of energy out of a 4 inch barrel (slight loss of velocity for a shorter barrel). This would have gone clean through the head, leaving an approximately
link [wikipedia.org]
He most likely would not have survived if this happened in the modern day.
Re:so, what this article is saying is... (Score:5, Informative)
His wife was very nervous for his safety, but he refused any bodyguards of any type. When he was inaugurated, he was sneaked into Washington, literally under a cloak. Some local papers got a hold of that story and mocked him for being cowardly. So, he instead was very open and brazen, much to the chagrin of his Mary Todd, who worried herself sick over his safety.
Her greatest fear became reality that night at the theater.
Thanks,
Mike
Re:Stating the obvious (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it's an Urban Legend. They had binoculars and they afforded them an excellent view of fog. Of course, knowing they were going into water that had icebergs floating in it, they probably would have been smart to drastically cut their speed, or perhaps plot a coarse around the fog bank, but then again, they believed the marketing kool-aid. In other news Vista is the most successful OS ever created.
Re:so, what this article is saying is... (Score:5, Informative)
By 1860, the bitter atmosphere arising from the discord between the northern and southern states had greatly increased the danger of political violence. As soon as Abraham Lincoln was chosen to be the Republican candidate for President that year, he began to receive numerous death threats. During the campaign, he was constantly surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards. In at least one instance, one of these bodyguards was Alan Pinkerton, the founder of the celebrated detective agency.
Lincoln's security detail grew after he assumed the Presidency. He chafed under this protection and worried that it made him appear unmanly, but he ultimately conceded its necessity. Numerous Metropolitan Police were detailed to the Executive Mansion to serve as guards. Because Lincoln did not want the Executive Mansion to take on the characteristics of an armed camp, the guards inside the Mansion (the doormen) dressed in civilian clothes and concealed their firearms. Uniformed, armed sentries were posted at the gates to the grounds and at the doors to the Executive Mansion itself.
During the Civil War, the military helped protect the Mansion. When the conflict started, soldiers actually camped inside the Executive Mansion until Washington was adequately fortified. Even after the city was deemed secure, military units were often assigned to serve as guards there.
Troops also frequently accompanied Lincoln during his travels. Indeed, throughout the Civil War, no member of Lincoln's family left the White House grounds unescorted. Thus, they were the first White House occupants to receive extensive personal protection. An armed, plainclothes member of the Metropolitan Police regularly accompanied Mrs. Lincoln on her outings. Moreover, the White House doormen never lost sight of the Lincolns' son Tad, who was considered a target for kidnappers. By 1864, four Metropolitan Policemen were assigned to serve as President Lincoln's personal bodyguards. One of these men, responsible for protecting Lincoln at Ford Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865, was having a drink at a nearby saloon when John Wilkes Booth fatally wounded the President with a shot to the head.
They weren't (Score:5, Informative)
For starters, in that same age, they had just fought a war over, you know, _slavery_. People were bought and sold, treated in some cases worse than cattle, and savagely whipped or occasionally executed on a whim. How's that for being nice to one's fellow humans?
And speaking of that civil war, it saw its share of such colourful characters as Bloody Bill Anderson [wikipedia.org]. The guy was _proud_ of applying terror tactics and executions not only against captured soldiers, but against civillian union sympathisers too.
Newspapers had not yet discovered that it pays to at least pretend to be impartial and objective. Yeah, I know they still aren't really, but back then they didn't even bother pretending. Lopsided, inflamatory and outright insulting journalism was the order of the day. Mud-slinging and outright libel were just normal political tools.
And then you should see what they said about other races and people. If you think nowadays' coverage of Iraq was a shame, back then it was orders of magnitude worse. It was for example the age of "white man's burden" and "mission to civilize" theories, where three quarters of the globe (including such civilizations like China or Japan) were presented as worse than Neanderthals, and it was the _burden_ of us poor white guys from the west to go sneer at them and shaft them, as some civilizing mission. And that was actually the _nice_ version.
It was also the age of such things as train robberies. No, they didn't jump into the train from horseback like in the movies. They just derailed the train, lots of people died, and the survivors got robbed.
It was the age of driving the natives out of their lands, and the occasional massacre. Custer for example wasn't a gentleman soldier in the war against savages, as the media at the time presented him. He was a guy who massacred whole camps, including a good percentage of the women and children, and held the survivors hostage (again, unarmed women and children) to force the rest of the tribe to accept being pushed into a reservation.
Etc, etc, etc.
The past _never_ was as cheerfully rose coloured as naive nostalgia presents it. That goes not only for the 19'th century. The Renaissance wasn't a cheerful age, like ren faires would have you believe, but a shithole that turned the whole european culture morbid and depressive for centuries. The knights in shiny armour weren't ideals of chivalry, but... well, let's just say that one manual for knights advised them to literally beat their wives senseless (as in, literally, until she loses consciousness) to keep them in line, and to break the wife's nose so other men won't find her pretty any more. And that's just one of the many atrocities of that caste. Etc.