Modern Medicine Might Have Saved Lincoln

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."

Comments

Dork-fest Extraordinaire

[queenb**ch]

It sounds like the guys who are too embarrassed to admit that they still live in Mom's basement found somewhere else to go besides the Star Trek convention. I bet if you raided 100 of their houses, you'd find 99 sets of Spock ears. Seriously, how is this news? Any of us can sit around and speculate about what would happen if Carthage had cannons, if Herodotus had a laptop, if the Romans had camcorders, if Galen had an ICU or if Battle Star Galactica had Romulan cloaking devices or of both BSG & ST had SG's star gates. It's still just that - speculation and it's just about as relevant to anything as my toe jam.
2 cents,

Queen B.

Lincoln wasn't worth saving

[Yonder Way]

Before you mod me down, understand that history is won by the victors.

I would suggest that Abraham Lincoln is probably one of the templates for the current US administration. Suspension of habeus corpus, erosion of state and individual rights, unconstitutional increases of executive power, etc. If you look at US history, the tyrannical empire started well on its way under the Lincoln administration. He actually had no interest in freeing the slaves (he's on record as such) and only did so as a military strategy to try and weaken the south.

My only regret about Lincoln's assassination is that it didn't come years sooner.

OK now you can go ahead and mod me down.

Here's the way doctors do it today

[nbauman]

As John Lennon said, there have been lots of advances in medicine, thanks to war. They improved the treatment of head wounds like this in the Vietnam war, and they got it down to a science in the Iraq war.

Here's the way they do it today:

http://content.nejm.org/content/vol352/issue20/ima ges/large/02f2.jpeg

Sergeant David Emme, a supply officer with a U.S. Army Stryker Brigade, was stationed at a submachine gun on a truck rolling through northern Iraq last November, in a convoy transporting Iraqi volunteers to Mosul for military training. As they entered the town of Talafar, Emme noticed that the streets were unusually quiet: no children were outdoors running toward the vehicles demanding sweets. Emme got on the radio and warned others in the convoy: "Something might happen. They might have some plan for us." Moments later, as they slowed at a traffic circle, an improvised explosive device (IED) went off right next to Emme's truck, knocking him out....

New England Journal of Medicine
Traumatic Brain Injury in the War Zone
Susan Okie, M.D.
Volume 352:2043-2047
May 19, 2005
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/352/20/20 43

They can survive, but life after a severe head wound is pretty bad:

Jason Pepper can't see the deer and wild turkeys that feed in the pasture in front of his new home, an hour's drive from Nashville. But when he sits and smokes on his front porch, he likes knowing they're out there -- and even more, he savors the silence. Pepper, who was blinded by a bomb in Iraq in 2004, completed a rehabilitation program for blind veterans last year at the Edward Hines, Jr., Veterans Affairs Hospital in Illinois, learning to find his way using a cane and a personal global positioning system (GPS) device. With this device he was able to travel alone by public transportation into downtown Chicago. By moving to the country, Pepper has given up that independence: his wife or her brother must drive him to his college classes and other appointments. But to Pepper, a former Army combat engineer still struggling with disabling headaches, episodic anxiety, and other sequelae of the blast that blinded him, damaged his brain, wounded both arms, and destroyed his sense of smell, it seemed more important to escape from the sounds he associates with danger and combat....

New England Journal of Medicine
Reconstructing Lives -- A Tale of Two Soldiers
Susan Okie, M.D.
Volume 355:2609-2615
December 21, 2006
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/25/26 09

This is the war that George W. Bush got us into. I've never met a military man who could explain how he could have respect (much less vote) for a commander-in-chief who dodged the draft in Vietnam himself.