GOOD-SAMARITAN SURGEON WRONGLY ACCUSED OF CONTRIBUTING TO PRESIDENT LINCOLN DEATH - AN EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY OF THE PRESIDENTS FATAL WOUND

BACKGROUND: When President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, he was immediately rendered unconscious and apneic. Doctor Charles A. Leale, an Army surgeon, who had special training in the care of brain injuri es, rushed to Lincoln's assistance. When Doctor Leale probed the wound in Lincoln's thickened scalp, feeling for the bullet, he dislodged a blood clot, and Lincoln began to breathe again. However, Lincoln progr essively deteriorated and died at 7:22 AM on April 15, 1865. During th e postmortem examination of Lincoln's body, numerous secondary missile s of bone and metal were found in the track of pultaceous brain tissue , extending completely through the brain to the front of the skull. In February 1995, an article in a popular magazine alleged that Doctor L eale had caused further (fatal) damage to Lincoln's brain by thrusting his finger into the brain through the bullet hole. The article allege d (wrongly) that most bullet wounds of the brain incurred in Civil War times were not fatal. STUDY DESIGN: The following study demonstrates that it is impossible to introduce even the tip of the little finger t hrough a hole in the skull resulting from Al-caliber bullet fired from a derringer. In our study, Al-caliber derringer was used to fire bull ets into numerous fresh skulls; the bullet holes all had razor-sharp e dges and were much too small to accommodate a fingertip. RESULTS: Thus , the allegation that President Lincoln's brain was damaged further be cause Doctor Leale thrust his finger through the bullet hole into the brain parenchyma is not valid, In this study, experimental data are pr esented to demonstrate the foregoing point. CONCLUSIONS: The wound mad e by John Wilkes Booth's derringer ball in Lincoln's brain was devasta ting; it was clearly the cause of his death. Good Samaritan surgeon Le ale has been falsely accused of contributing to Lincoln's death.