# Which Presidents Would have Survived Assassination with Modern Medicine? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 29, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665 "2013-05-29T23:08:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/1 "2013-05-29T23:08:08Z")
Four sitting presidents have been killed: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President), James A. Garfield (the 20th President), William McKinley (the 25th President) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th President). Which of these would have survived the assassination attempt if they had been treated with modern medicine? Likewise would Reagan have survived if the assassination attempt had happened several decades ago, instead of 1981? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/2 "2013-05-29T23:16:08Z")
My WAG. [McKinley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley)and [Garfield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield) yes. Lincoln and Kennedy no. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/3 "2013-05-29T23:30:37Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > My WAG. [McKinley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley)and [Garfield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield) yes. Lincoln and Kennedy no. that would be my guess also ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/4 "2013-05-29T23:51:21Z")
Garfield would have survived with the medical care available at that time if they’d just left him alone. He was tortured for two long months before he finally died. Yes, I did read “Destiny of the Republic”. ---
**Author:** ![Dolukhanova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c68b51/32.png) [@Dolukhanova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dolukhanova)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/5 "2013-05-30T00:03:48Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Likewise would Reagan have survived if the assassination attempt had happened several decades ago, instead of 1981? Man, I hate to break it to you - and to myself - but 1981 _was_ several decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/6 "2013-05-30T00:07:22Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Garfield would have survived with the medical care available at that time if they’d just left him alone. He was tortured for two long months before he finally died. > > Yes, I did read “Destiny of the Republic”. Sarah Vowell goes into detail on his “treatment” as well in _Assassination Vacation_. He certainly would have made it. IIRC they thought that McKinley was going to make it as well; prognosis was good enough that Theodore Roosevelt didn’t even cut his vacation short. Lincoln and Kennedy would have been vegetables if they lived. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/7 "2013-05-30T01:03:43Z")
> [@Dolukhanova](#): > > Man, I hate to break it to you - and to myself - but 1981 _was_ several decades ago. If you follow ATMB, you know about this board being slow to respond sometimes. The OP may in fact have typed his post and clicked on “Submit” several decades ago, and it’s just appearing here now. (And that’s why his user name is **PastTense**! 🙂 ) Not just assassinations, BTW: Besides the doctors torturing Garfield as mentioned above, the same appears to be true of William Henry Harrison, who merely had a bad cold. Okay, he had pneumonia. But it was the doctors treatments that killed him, probably. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/8 "2013-05-30T03:09:58Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Not just assassinations, BTW: Besides the doctors torturing Garfield as mentioned above, the same appears to be true of William Henry Harrison, who merely had a bad cold. Okay, he had pneumonia. But it was the doctors treatments that killed him, probably. Which raises the other half of the question. What about Harrison, Taylor, Harding and Roosevelt? Could modern medicine have saved them? Would Wilson receive good enough therapy for his stroke to make a better recovery? ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/9 "2013-05-30T03:18:56Z")
I remember seeing a documentary once about Lincoln’s assassination. They mentioned that a doctor inserted a probe into the bullet hole and tried to fish out the bullet. The documentary opined that this was what actually killed Lincoln, since he was alive and breathing immediately after being shot. I have no idea whether modern medicine could have saved him, but 1865 medicine likely wasn’t doing him any favors. Disclaimer: I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the documentary’s claims, or honestly, the accuracy of my memory of the documentary. Anyone heard anything like this? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/10 "2013-05-30T03:21:15Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Not just assassinations, BTW: Besides the doctors torturing Garfield as mentioned above, the same appears to be true of William Henry Harrison, who merely had a bad cold. Okay, he had pneumonia. But it was the doctors treatments that killed him, probably. George Washington’s doctors might not have killed him, but they certainly did everything to make his final hours an absolute agony. They bled him several times including after he begged them to stop, they performed a tracheotomy without anesthesia or antiseptic, applied heat to bring his fever to a break, etc.; it would have been more charitable just to let him die. (He died of pneumonia; today he’d probably be in ICU for a night and then moved to a regular room and out of the hospital altogether within days.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/11 "2013-05-30T03:22:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Would Wilson receive good enough therapy for his stroke to make a better recovery? Modern medicine includes near-perfect treatment for strokes, so long as it’s administered within an hour or two of the event. This is a bit iffy for ordinary schmoes (it might be that long before anyone even realizes anything is wrong), but I expect that it would be no problem for the President. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/12 "2013-05-30T03:23:20Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Which raises the other half of the question. What about Harrison, Taylor, Harding and Roosevelt? Could modern medicine have saved them? Would Wilson receive good enough therapy for his stroke to make a better recovery? Interesting sidenote: Taylor was exhumed a few years ago because of one historian’s theory he was poisoned. The test showed no evidence for that at all. FDR was in absolutely terrible shape for the last couple of years of his life. The public not only didn’t know he wasn’t able to walk during the 1944 election- they didn’t know how sick he was. He wore makeup in public to give his gray complexion some color. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/13 "2013-05-30T03:34:20Z")
Previous thread on topic: [With modern medicine, could Lincoln have survived?](http://senegoid.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=531928) There are several links to articles on the topic, but some may now be dead links. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/14 "2013-05-30T03:34:21Z")
Drive through a poor black neighborhood and hear mournful gospel music emanating from the shacks. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/15 "2013-05-30T03:35:28Z")
Drive through a poor black neighborhood and hear generic mournful gospel music. Then a Jewish neighborhood where you’ll hear generic klezmer. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/16 "2013-05-30T03:48:02Z")
Ignore last two posts obviously- sorry. (Wrong thread.) ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/17 "2013-05-30T05:01:56Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > I remember seeing a documentary once about Lincoln’s assassination. They mentioned that a doctor inserted a probe into the bullet hole and tried to fish out the bullet. The documentary opined that this was what actually killed Lincoln, since he was alive and breathing immediately after being shot. > > I have no idea whether modern medicine could have saved him, but 1865 medicine likely wasn’t doing him any favors. > > Disclaimer: I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the documentary’s claims, or honestly, the accuracy of my memory of the documentary. Anyone heard anything like this? I’ve heard this too. I read it in a book by Bob Brier about the death of Tutankhamun–the idea was that he (Tut) had been struck in the back of the head, and that the doctors had celebrity jitters, so to speak, so they couldn’t treat him properly. Brier, IIRC, said that Lincoln went through the same thing–the doctors couldn’t treat him properly because he was the president. Which…sounds awfully dubious to me (to the point where I’m questioning if I’m even remembering it correctly), but if it’s true, that would mean that Lincoln would possibly have survived with the proper surgical techniques. Also, I was always under the impression that Kennedy died pretty much instantly. ---
**Author:** ![Reverend\_Meade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Reverend\_Meade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reverend_Meade)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/18 "2013-05-30T05:14:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Modern medicine includes near-perfect treatment for strokes, so long as it’s administered within an hour or two of the event. This is a bit iffy for ordinary schmoes (it might be that long before anyone even realizes anything is wrong), but I expect that it would be no problem for the President. It depends on the type of stroke. Ischemic strokes can be treated by drugs (to an extent), but hemorrhagic strokes are more limited. Even an ischemic stroke treated in time can be pretty debilitating though. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/19 "2013-05-30T09:27:00Z")
Three of the four Stuart Kings of England died from a stroke of some kind; Charles II was practically tortured to death by the doctors in his 50s, whilst his brother lived to old age but suffered a brain haemorrhage at the end; an earlier episode having incapacitated him during the revolution. Odd to think anyone then could have survived at all from something like that. Even odder to imagine them surviving the doctors. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665/20 "2013-05-30T12:07:07Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > My WAG. [McKinley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_William_McKinley)and [Garfield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield) yes. Lincoln and Kennedy no. Actually, there was an article in American Heritage several years ago that said Lincoln could have been saved even using the medicine and knowledge of the time. In any case, there is a very strong argument that [he could have survived](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR2007052000873.html) with current medical knowledge. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-presidents-would-have-survived-assassination-with-modern-medicine/659665.md?page=2)