# With modern medicine, could Lincoln have survived? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026 "2009-09-14T14:07:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [September 14, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/1 "2009-09-14T14:07:47Z")
Just curious - would the shot to the head that killed Lincoln have been survivable today? Or was it just too serious, even for modern medicine? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/2 "2009-09-14T14:28:29Z")
I don’t know about Lincoln, but I believe the consensus is that McKinley’s death owed more to infection (largely from doctors attempting to retrieve the bullet) than from the wound itself. He would very likely have survived with modern care. See: [Assassination of William McKinley - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley_assassination) ---
**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:** [September 14, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/3 "2009-09-14T14:52:45Z")
There was an article in American Heritage a few years ago that said that Lincoln could have survived _[using knowledge available in 1865](http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1995/1/1995_1_63.shtml)._ But that treatment required that the doctor do nothing, something that he’d be very unwilling to do in the case of the president (especially since not all doctors knew the correct contemporaneous treatment). Of course, if that happened, there was a good chance that an infection would have eventually done the killing, but since Lincoln’s doctors luckily avoided the #1 cause of infection at the time – hospitals – he might have survived that, too. What effect the resulting brain damage would have is pure speculation. He might have been alive, but unresponsive. Since he could have been saved with techniques of the time, though, I think it follows he could have been saved now. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/4 "2009-09-14T15:01:58Z")
Garfield also would have survived being shot if his doctors would have just left him alone. It was an infection caused by attempts to remove the bullet rather than the bullet itself which finally killed Garfield ten weeks after he had been shot. This issue was raised by Charles Guiteau’s attornies at his trial when they argued that it was Guiteau hadn’t actually killed Garfield. And while he had retired from the Presidency, George Washington was also killed by his doctors when they treated his pneumonia by the then standard practice of bleeding him. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/5 "2009-09-14T15:10:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And while he had retired from the Presidency, George Washington was also killed by his doctors when they treated his pneumonia by the then standard practice of bleeding him. Speaking of which, is there any evidence that bleeding ever helped anyone who was sick? Perhaps it didn’t really hurt to remove some blood from someone, heck, I donate blood every two months and it hasn’t ever hurt me, but to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise I would have thought someone would have suggested they not bleed a patient just to see what happens… ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/6 "2009-09-14T15:37:56Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Just curious - would the shot to the head that killed Lincoln have been survivable today? Or was it just too serious, even for modern medicine? I don’t know, but if it’s accurate, [here](http://www.galenpress.com/extras/extra29.htm) is a pretty detailed account of the injury. Doesn’t sound very promising even for today’s technology. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/7 "2009-09-14T15:43:47Z")
And McKinley’s bullet nailed his pancreas. I think that even today, if your pancreas starts leaking into your body cavity, you’re in a heap of trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/8 "2009-09-14T15:55:42Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Speaking of which, is there any evidence that bleeding ever helped anyone who was sick? Perhaps it didn’t really hurt to remove some blood from someone, heck, I donate blood every two months and it hasn’t ever hurt me, but to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise I would have thought someone would have suggested they not bleed a patient just to see what happens… Well, you have to understand that things also got a lot cleaner when bloodletting fell into disuse, and that other drugs came into existence. [Per this cite](http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jun/26/health/he-esoterica26) a recent discovery shows that some bacteria use iron in the blood to survive - so letting some of that blood out could be beneficial in treatment in the absence of anything else. Of course take this to extremes and you can weaken or kill the patient, and bloodletting wouldn’t be a recourse today because of other better options. Still. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/9 "2009-09-14T16:10:08Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise That was the leading edge of medical understanding in the butchery days - the idea was that illnesses were due to an imbalance of the four humors, and could be treated by removing excessive amounts of the relevant one to restore the proper balance. The science of biochemistry didn’t come along until later. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/10 "2009-09-14T16:27:37Z")
> [@](#): > > There was an article in American Heritage a few years ago that said that Lincoln could have survived using knowledge available in 1865. But that treatment required that the doctor do nothing, something that he’d be very unwilling to do in the case of the president (especially since not all doctors knew the correct contemporaneous treatment). Interestingly, American Heritage had printed a few years before an article written by Reagan’s personal physician that claimed even the best modern treatment would probably just left Lincoln hopelessly incapacitated. [Check out the end of this article](http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1992/5/1992_5_104.shtml). ---
**Author:** ![Hirundo82](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/919ad9/32.png) [@Hirundo82](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirundo82)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/11 "2009-09-14T16:37:52Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Speaking of which, is there any evidence that bleeding ever helped anyone who was sick? Perhaps it didn’t really hurt to remove some blood from someone, heck, I donate blood every two months and it hasn’t ever hurt me, but to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise I would have thought someone would have suggested they not bleed a patient just to see what happens… Bleeding was performed to rebalance a patient’s [humours](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humours), so it was based on a faulty premise and usually employed as a panacea. There are a couple of indications that bleeding (now called “[therapeutic phlebotomy](http://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/600_699/0652.html)” and done in the same way that one donates blood) would be useful for, namely [hemochromatosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemochromatosis) (iron overload) and [polycythemia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycythemia) (too many red blood cells) ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/12 "2009-09-14T18:10:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Garfield also would have survived being shot if his doctors would have just left him alone. It was an infection caused by attempts to remove the bullet rather than the bullet itself which finally killed Garfield ten weeks after he had been shot. This issue was raised by Charles Guiteau’s attornies at his trial when they argued that it was Guiteau hadn’t actually killed Garfield. > > … That argument by Guiteau was aided a good bit in that right after the shooting doctors made public statements that Garfield’s wound was not serious, and the President would recover. Of course, that was a relatively logical argument compared to a lot of Guiteau’s trial antics. Guiteau was clearly a looney tune, even if his insanity defense didn’t fly either. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/13 "2009-09-14T20:54:38Z")
As I recall, the doctor attending Lincoln had pokeda “nelaton” probe into the wound-and concluded that Lincoln’s brain hadbeen totaly destroyed. The finges and th non-sterile probe probably would have caused a deadly infection. Anyway, had he survived, Abe would have been a vegetable. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/14 "2009-09-14T21:03:25Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > As I recall, the doctor attending Lincoln had pokeda “nelaton” probe into the wound-and concluded that Lincoln’s brain hadbeen totaly destroyed. The finges and th non-sterile probe probably would have caused a deadly infection. > Anyway, had he survived, Abe would have been a vegetable. That reads like a brain-dead Lincoln wrote it. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/15 "2009-09-14T21:14:44Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Speaking of which, is there any evidence that bleeding ever helped anyone who was sick? Perhaps it didn’t really hurt to remove some blood from someone, heck, I donate blood every two months and it hasn’t ever hurt me, but to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise I would have thought someone would have suggested they not bleed a patient just to see what happens… There is some data suggesting that people who give blood have a lower incidence of heart attack. I’ll try to find a citation. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/16 "2009-09-14T21:34:13Z")
Bleeding probably came into use for good reason. The problem was that doctors have never almost never been scientists. Even today, they are usually incapable of properly applying scienitif reasoing and often remain wedded to bad or outmoded treatments or analyzing results. Doctors, one might say, are only human. There are more than just unusual conditions to treat with bleeding. In an age of poor medicine, bleeding would make people with bad cholesterol feel better for a while, and was just about the only thing which would - it thins the blood and improves circulation. And diets in those days were… _excessive_… if you could afford it. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/17 "2009-09-15T02:20:57Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Speaking of which, is there any evidence that bleeding ever helped anyone who was sick? Perhaps it didn’t really hurt to remove some blood from someone, heck, I donate blood every two months and it hasn’t ever hurt me, but to bleed someone when they are ill, and most likely in a weakend state, seems like such a pointless exercise I would have thought someone would have suggested they not bleed a patient just to see what happens… We just heard a presentation at Yorktown (VA - site of decisive battle of the American Revolutionary War) where they discussed the medical technology of the time. The fellow made the point that, for a fever, letting blood actually _did_ temporarily lower the fever. Of course, once the body adjusted to the new blood volume, the fever would go right back up. So they would redo the bloodletting, only this time they’d take twice as much. Repeat as necessary until patient improves or dies. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/18 "2009-09-15T04:38:25Z")
Here is an AP [article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051800250.html) and a Washington Post [article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR2007052000873.html) about a conference in 2007 on this very topic, and an online [chat](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/05/18/DI2007051801458.html) with the WashPost reporter. While an amusing hypothetical, IMO the point that Booth would have had a much more powerful gun in modern times trumps advances in medicine. ---
**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:** [September 15, 2009, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/19 "2009-09-15T12:57:46Z")
Thanks very much for all the replies, everyone. I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion myself, but I’ve been reading the replies and following the links. Very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026/20 "2009-09-15T14:35:41Z")
Fun link: [http://rarediseases.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=rarediseases&cdn=health&tm=35&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip\_p736.8.336.ip\_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//nmhm.washingtondc.museum/events/lincoln\_2009.html](http://rarediseases.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=rarediseases&cdn=health&tm=35&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip_p736.8.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//nmhm.washingtondc.museum/events/lincoln_2009.html) I know there is dispute about whether he had Marfan Syndrome, but if he did, that might have taken him down anyway. (The three people I’ve known with Marfan looked exactly like Lincoln, despite the debate over his finger length.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-modern-medicine-could-lincoln-have-survived/510026.md?page=2)