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Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. How many times in movies

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Speaker 1: over the years have we heard somebody say, is there

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Speaker 1: a doctor in the house. I've often wondered about the

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Speaker 1: origin of that comment, because you know, it's used theatrically

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Speaker 1: many times. I know that obviously that has occurred in

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Speaker 1: real life. Is there a doctor in the house? Is

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Speaker 1: there a doctor? President? That night in Fort's theater, a

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Speaker 1: call was put out to the audience, is there a surgeon?

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Speaker 1: Is there a surgeon? Today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the assassination an autopsy of our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln.

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Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags. Dave mac

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Speaker 1: We've got so much information here. Let's continue on with part.

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Speaker 2: Two as we look at what has taken place. This

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Speaker 2: is the part that, like millions of other people, I

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Speaker 2: can't understand what happened. Next, we've got John Willkes Booth

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Speaker 2: in the theater where he obviously had access because people

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Speaker 2: knew who he was. Now Booth's standing there, he pulls

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Speaker 2: the trigger. He shoots the president in the head and

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Speaker 2: then proceeds to slash major wrathbone and then leaps from

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Speaker 2: the presidential booth to the stage. That's the story, and

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Speaker 2: that Wrathbone tried to grab his jacket, causing Booth to

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Speaker 2: land awkwardly, possibly breaking his leg as he landed. And

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Speaker 2: then the hunt was on everybody else. As you mentioned,

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Speaker 2: is there a surgeon in the house. The president has

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Speaker 2: been shot in the head. They have to immediately get

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Speaker 2: him out of where he is and get him into

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Speaker 2: the care of doctors. I'm sure they just don't grab

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Speaker 2: him up like a child and run out of there.

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Speaker 1: No, when he was initially, when the first assessment was

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Speaker 1: made by the surgeon that rolled into the box, he

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Speaker 1: noted that the president was still seated in his chair,

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Speaker 1: in the presidential chair there in the booth, and he

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Speaker 1: was leaning to his right. So the defect or where

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Speaker 1: the injury is is going to be on the left,

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Speaker 1: rear or posterior aspect of the president's skull, and Mary

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Speaker 1: Todd Lincoln was kind of cradling he was leaning over

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Speaker 1: on top of her. He's a big man too, i mean,

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Speaker 1: Tala's president we've ever had. He's leaning over onto the

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Speaker 1: first lady and she's kind of diminutive, so you can

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Speaker 1: see this giant of a man. She's cradling she's I'm

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Speaker 1: sure she's weeping. She's hysterical at this point, and the

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Speaker 1: surgeon arrives and they know that he's I don't know

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Speaker 1: that they know he's been mortally wounded. As as a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, people saw people report hearing the report

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Speaker 1: of the weapon, many people pause because they thought that

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Speaker 1: it was part of the play. Can you imagine that?

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Speaker 1: And I think that it's much the same kind of

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Speaker 1: response that we would have today. We're not automatically going

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Speaker 1: to think that somebody has just been the victim of

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Speaker 1: homicide right in front of us. We think if you're

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Speaker 1: at an entertainment venue like this, you're going to think, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is just part of the play, and somebody's down

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Speaker 1: on the stage. They leapt from a box very dramatically,

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Speaker 1: and I think even Booth shouted out. Some people debate

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Speaker 1: over what he said. Six sempra Tyrannus, I think, which

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Speaker 1: is the state modol Virginia, death to tyrants. I think.

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Speaker 2: But you mentioned earlier that he knew the play. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he picked an actual part of the play where people

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Speaker 2: might think it was part of the show, So he

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Speaker 2: knew what he was doing. In terms of the potential getaway.

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Speaker 1: So there's kind of this delay that occurs. It's reported

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Speaker 1: that Mary Todd Lincoln screamed, and it's at that point

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Speaker 1: it kind of show at everybody. They realized that something

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Speaker 1: truly horrible has happened, and you have people that are

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Speaker 1: in attendance. A young surgeon had made his way up

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Speaker 1: to the box and when he was taking a look

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Speaker 1: at at President Lincoln, he's trying to assess, which is

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Speaker 1: what surgeons do. That's what physicians do. They're trying to

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Speaker 1: assess a patient to try to understand, first off, if

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Speaker 1: it's trauma related, where is this these insults to the

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Speaker 1: body that we're looking for. At first, he saw blood

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Speaker 1: on the shoulder. People did see the knife. You know,

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Speaker 1: this Philadelphia pocket pistol is easily concealed. They heard what

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Speaker 1: sounded like gunfire, but there was nothing to validate. But

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Speaker 1: Boots got this knife that actually looks like a big

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Speaker 1: Bowie knife, gigantic hilt, lengthy blade. He's brandishing this thing.

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Speaker 1: Rathbone has been cut at this point from his shoulder

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Speaker 1: down to his elbow. I think he's been slashed. So

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Speaker 1: the surgeon, his first inclination is to think, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: this is a cut, maybe the president has been slashed

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Speaker 1: in some way. But then as he begins to kind

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Speaker 1: of work his hand up to the president's hairline, he

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Speaker 1: pulls it away and he notes that there's blood on

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Speaker 1: the back of the skull, on the back of his head,

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Speaker 1: and then he knows what he's dealing with. He's dealing

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Speaker 1: with a gunshot one, which is something he would not

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Speaker 1: have been unfamiliar with. Remember we're still in the midst

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Speaker 1: of a war.

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Speaker 2: Back then, and they didn't have X rays, they didn't

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Speaker 2: have MRIs, they didn't have any means of figuring out

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Speaker 2: what kind of damage has been done. We just at

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Speaker 2: this point know that the president has been shot in

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Speaker 2: the head. What do they do? Start poking? How do

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Speaker 2: they know?

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Speaker 1: Well, what they know. The first thing they do is

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Speaker 1: they're using their bare hands, which look, you can't fault

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Speaker 1: these people for doing that. And I got to tell you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got somebody there and you don't

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Speaker 1: have surgical gloves only, you're going to use your hands

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Speaker 1: as well. But you there's a higher there's the bar

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Speaker 1: is a bit higher for surgeons, certainly today there are

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Speaker 1: but you know, the only way that you can kind

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Speaker 1: of assess what's going on, is that you're going to

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Speaker 1: feel for a defect, and it would have been a

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Speaker 1: circular defect that he would have sustained. And if folks

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Speaker 1: that are listening, if you will find that bony protuberance

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Speaker 1: on the back of your skull, it's kind of this

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Speaker 1: bump on the back of it. Okay, that's the occipital area.

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Speaker 1: Some people call it the occiput. This injury is going

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Speaker 1: to be three inches behind what they called the external

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Speaker 1: auditory meatus, which is essentially your ear hole. So it's

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Speaker 1: going to be to the rear of the left ear

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Speaker 1: and slightly to the left of the midline. So if

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Speaker 1: you find the back of your skull, find the middle

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Speaker 1: of it, below the occiput, that bony protuberance, and go

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Speaker 1: right there below that area on the back of your head.

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Speaker 1: That's where the president's gunshot wound is. So when it entered,

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Speaker 1: it actually pushed through the cerebellum, which is that portion

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Speaker 1: of the brain that sits at the base of the brain.

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Speaker 1: It was tough to assess the track of the wound,

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Speaker 1: and even today you don't have immediate access to X

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Speaker 1: ray or be able to make some kind of diagnostic assessment.

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Speaker 1: But the president, for a time at least, had stopped

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Speaker 1: breathing and his pupils were dilated. He had either shallow

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Speaker 1: respirations or no respirations at all. But guess what, when

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Speaker 1: this initial responding surgeon places his hand adjacent finds the defect,

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Speaker 1: he pulls out a clot of blood which had been

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Speaker 1: creating pressure at that point in time. And when he

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Speaker 1: pulled out that clot of blood, Lincoln starts breathing again.

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Speaker 1: So with that spark, with that moment, there's probably hope.

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Speaker 1: Certainly everybody else is not really going to know what's

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Speaker 1: going on. But the surgeon says, Okay, I've done this assessment.

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Speaker 1: I've removed this clot of blood. You know what, maybe

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Speaker 1: there's a chance the president is breathing. Now what do

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Speaker 1: you do with him? Because we know, we know that

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Speaker 1: they had made the assessment even up in that box

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Speaker 1: that they could not take him very far. He sustained

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Speaker 1: a gunshot wound to the head. They know that he's

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Speaker 1: probably not going to be long for this world. That

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Speaker 1: we didn't have, You didn't have escalades that drive smoothly

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Speaker 1: down the road on paved roads. At best roads were cobblestone,

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Speaker 1: and in DC at that particular time, it was nothing

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Speaker 1: to have dirt streets, and those would have wagon wheel

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Speaker 1: ruts in them. So you take somebody that has got,

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Speaker 1: let's face it, probably one of the most serious head

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Speaker 1: wounds that you can sustain, and you put them in

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Speaker 1: the back of a buggy or the back of a

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Speaker 1: wagon and try to convey them all the way back

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Speaker 1: to the White House, which is some distance away down

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Speaker 1: these bumpy roads. It probably wouldn't last one block. So

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Speaker 1: they've got to get him somewhere. In the closest place

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Speaker 1: is boarding house. It's immediately across the street from Ford's Theater.

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Speaker 1: And people have heard this tale before, but you have

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Speaker 1: to be able to assess the president in his current status.

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Speaker 1: The bed that they found Lincoln's a tall guide. They

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Speaker 1: had to place him, they'd say obliquely, they use that term,

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Speaker 1: but it's kind of diagonally across the bed, so that

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Speaker 1: he would he could fit on it. And soon you've

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Speaker 1: got all of these surgeons gathering at the house. Not

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Speaker 1: to mention any kind of other officials, but here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: When you've got more than one physician in the room,

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Speaker 1: everybody's going to have a different opinion and just think

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Speaker 1: about the added pressure of having the president there. What

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Speaker 1: they did know is that they were going to try

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Speaker 1: to have to assess the location as they refer to

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Speaker 1: the location of the ball. We refer to them as

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Speaker 1: projectiles now most of the time, but they refer to

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Speaker 1: these as balls. And this goes all the way back

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Speaker 1: to muzzle loading days of Revolutionary War and up to

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Speaker 1: that day. In particular, because it was a ball shape.

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Speaker 1: It was a spherical lead ball that had been fired

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Speaker 1: into the president's head, they had to try to determine

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Speaker 1: the track of the wound, where did it go, where

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Speaker 1: did it wind up? And they had this interesting kind

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Speaker 1: of probe, which is fascinating. They didn't have X ray,

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Speaker 1: so what they would do is that they would insert

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Speaker 1: this probe that had this kind of fin like shape

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Speaker 1: to it, and as you go into the track of

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Speaker 1: the wound, there was a certain feel that this probe

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Speaker 1: would generate as it made contact with the metallic body

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Speaker 1: in there. And this was disrupted a few times because

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Speaker 1: as they're doing this assessment with this probe, they're encountering

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Speaker 1: not the lead ball, but they're encountering fractured bits of

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Speaker 1: skull because the ball itself cavitated through the area, but

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Speaker 1: as it's passing through the external table of the skull,

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Speaker 1: it's creating other little satellite projectiles that are pointy, they're jagged,

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Speaker 1: so they're tearing apart any of the little vessels, and

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Speaker 1: there are many in the brain, and you're creating this

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Speaker 1: cavitated area that's filling up with blood. They're trying to

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Speaker 1: keep it drained because they do know, even at that

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Speaker 1: primitive state that they were in and understanding of how

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Speaker 1: the brain functions, the more pressure you have entercranial pressure,

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Speaker 1: you have the higher probability that you're going to lose

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Speaker 1: a patient. So they were trying their best to keep

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Speaker 1: this clotted blood out, essentially draining that area's best they

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Speaker 1: could in that boarding house. He survived. He survived remarkably,

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Speaker 1: I think roughly in the neighborhood of about eight hours.

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Speaker 1: They didn't call it until seven thirty am. This had happened,

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Speaker 1: I believe, shortly after ten pm that night when he

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Speaker 1: was shot. So the fact that they were able to

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Speaker 1: help him survive that long is quite the feat. He

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Speaker 1: just he couldn't as the night went by, his breathing

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Speaker 1: became progressively more labor There was another moment in time

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Speaker 1: where they were able to remove a clotted area of blood.

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Speaker 1: Again is breathing picked back up. But at that point

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Speaker 1: time you can't get in to this area. They don't

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Speaker 1: have the ability, They don't have the technology and the

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Speaker 1: tools to be able to perform surgery on the president.

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Speaker 1: This is in fact a mortal wound.

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Speaker 2: Backing up for just a second, do they at that

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Speaker 2: time take into account the muzzle velocity and this fact

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Speaker 2: that it is just a ball as to how far

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Speaker 2: it could traverse into his brain And are they thinking, hey,

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Speaker 2: we need to figure out a way to get that

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Speaker 2: out of there.

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Speaker 1: Probably this is the trouble. This is what the attendings

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Speaker 1: were faced with at this moment tom when they're attempting

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Speaker 1: to do this assessment day. They're sitting there and they're thinking,

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Speaker 1: how in the world are we going to retrieve this round?

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Speaker 1: And even if we retrieved around, what does this mean

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Speaker 1: for the president? What does this mean for his ability

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Speaker 1: to survive? What does it mean for if he does survive,

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Speaker 1: what his quality of life it's going to be? Like,

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Speaker 1: I think that they probably know the further that they

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Speaker 1: try to go down this wound track, there's a higher

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Speaker 1: probability they're going to compromise the brain's function. I think

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Speaker 1: that they know that, so these initial attempts to probe

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Speaker 1: I think were hopeful attempts.

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Speaker 2: Was he ever conscious he was.

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Speaker 1: Down, he was out the entirety. He never gained consciousness.

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Speaker 1: I think that there are a couple of reports that

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Speaker 1: he had begun to snore heavily at one point in time,

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Speaker 1: which is something that is associated with a diminishment many

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Speaker 1: times with patients that have sustained these fatal head traumas

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Speaker 1: that are kind of lingering, and all the while you've

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Speaker 1: got this other action that's going on. You know. I

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Speaker 1: talked about the clotting that was taking place, but when

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Speaker 1: they're assessing this wound on the back of his head,

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Speaker 1: they noted that there was they referred to as echimosis

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Speaker 1: that was developing around the entry wound. Well, aakamosis means

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Speaker 1: that there's swelling, it has the appearance of a bruise,

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Speaker 1: and they would have been able to appreciate this while

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Speaker 1: trying to assess him through kind of the fog of

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Speaker 1: the gunpowder residue, because there's going to be a tremendous

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Speaker 1: amount of deposition just from imagine something that is as

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Speaker 1: black as asphalt. When you're talking about black powder deposition

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Speaker 1: on an area like this, it would have just been

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Speaker 1: surrounding the wound. But they can see that there is

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Speaker 1: developing hemorrhage back there. They know that, and this is

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Speaker 1: just externally. They know that the capilliir beds have been

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Speaker 1: burst in this area. He's still breathing, he's still his

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Speaker 1: heart still pumping, so he's bleeding out into this area.

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Speaker 1: Swelling is occurring. Not only do you have swelling occurring

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Speaker 1: externally that they can appreciate vis via the echuamosis, but

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Speaker 1: there's also enter cranial pressure is building up because of

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Speaker 1: the swelling the trauma that the brain has gone through,

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Speaker 1: and the more it swells, the more it swells, the

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Speaker 1: more diminished the capacity of the brain to function, and

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Speaker 1: more compromise it has become. Interestingly enough, I'd mentioned the

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Speaker 1: wound track. It clipped the top of the left aspect

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Speaker 1: of the cerebellum, and then kind of there's been questions

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Speaker 1: over the years as to the exact track of the

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Speaker 1: of the wound, and we'll get to that in just

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Speaker 1: a second. Relative to the autopsy. But there is one

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Speaker 1: thought that the that the track of the round went

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Speaker 1: straight ahead toward the back of the left eye, okay,

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Speaker 1: and that would have left it in the left hemisphere

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Speaker 1: of the brain. Then there's another school of thought that

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Speaker 1: it traversed from left to right. So if you put

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Speaker 1: your hand back where I told you initially, your finger

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Speaker 1: back there where the entrance wound would have been, you

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Speaker 1: start there and then you go to the right orbit

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Speaker 1: of your eye, that the projectile would have lodged immediately

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Speaker 1: behind the right eye, and it kind of traversed diagonally

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Speaker 1: across the middle line. So you've got it crossing from

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Speaker 1: the left hemisphere of the brain into the right hemisphere

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Speaker 1: of the brain. We do know that the brain was

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Speaker 1: greatly damaged in this event, to the point where even

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Speaker 1: at autopsy they were having trouble assessing that. The president's

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Speaker 1: body was removed from the boarding house, It was placed

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Speaker 1: into a carriage, the body was given a cavalry escort.

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Speaker 1: There's a bit of I hate to use the word

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Speaker 1: irony in this because that can be misunderstood, but it's

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Speaker 1: fascinating to me that John Parker, the security guard, was

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Speaker 1: absent that night but as soon as as the president

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Speaker 1: was shot, they talked about the streets were filled filled

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Speaker 1: with mental horseback carrying sabers. You had tremendous security that

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Speaker 1: showed up after the fact. That's quite the tragedy. They

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Speaker 1: actually had to use soldiers to keep people back from

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Speaker 1: the boarding house. And it's easy to Monday morning quarterback,

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Speaker 1: but why not beforehand? A lot of this could have

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Speaker 1: been spared. That was just not in their way of thinking.

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Speaker 1: And Lincoln was notorious for slipping away. He was not

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Speaker 1: a pretentious person. They referred to him as rough hewn,

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Speaker 1: that he grew up in the wilderness, and he truly

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Speaker 1: did you know those areas that he occupied as a

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Speaker 1: small boy, starting in Kentucky, going to Indiana, and then

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Speaker 1: winding up in Illinois. That was a frontier man. It

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Speaker 1: was hard living and wasn't lace curtains and crystal chandeliers

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Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff in his world. He

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Speaker 1: didn't like pretense, I don't think, and so he would

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Speaker 1: dismiss security periodically. He would he would not want to

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Speaker 1: be surrender. He wanted to be with people. That was

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Speaker 1: his nature. And so that night his body was conveyed

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Speaker 1: back to the White House, which is where the autopsy

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Speaker 1: actually took place. In one description, they talked about how

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Speaker 1: the room in which his body was examined was sparsely decorated,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting given Mary Todd Lincoln's preoccupation

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Speaker 1: with spending lots of money on redecorating the White House.

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Speaker 1: There was even a congressional investigation into her expenditures. But

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Speaker 1: they placed him on a slatted surface, wooden boards covered

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Speaker 1: with sheets and cloths essentially, And to do the examination

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Speaker 1: there were multiple physicians there and who.

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Speaker 2: Would actually do it, Joe? Would it be the surgeon

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Speaker 2: that was on duty with him?

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Speaker 1: You've got a couple of surgeons that were participating. There

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Speaker 1: was really you had doctors that studied disease, but you

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Speaker 1: didn't actually have what would be called a pathologist, okay,

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Speaker 1: like we have nowadays. You had a guy that was

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Speaker 1: a surgeon. For a long time, the term surgeon and

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Speaker 1: physician were kind of interchangeable. You had one surgeon, doctor Curtis,

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Speaker 1: that was present for the autopsy and was actually conducting

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Speaker 1: the autopsy. He's the person that removed the President's brain.

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Speaker 1: How do you go about opening a head in this

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Speaker 1: environment doing an autopsy? Well, you use it with a handsaw.

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Speaker 1: You do it with a handsaw, and they had a

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Speaker 1: very specific type of saw that they would have used.

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Speaker 1: It had a small wooden handle on it. The teeth

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Speaker 1: of the blade were more robust than say, for instance,

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Speaker 1: a hacksaw, but it is a saw nonetheless that would

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Speaker 1: have had to have been used to do this. I've

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Speaker 1: actually used a handsaw to open a skull at autopsy,

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Speaker 1: and it is laborious. We usually use a striker saw,

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Speaker 1: which is I've talked about before, which is this agitating

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Speaker 1: saw where the blade moves back rapidly back and forth,

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Speaker 1: and within just a couple of minutes, you'd have what's

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Speaker 1: referred to as the cal varium, which the calvarium is

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Speaker 1: actually created. It's created and some people call it the

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Speaker 1: skull cap. You remove it after the incision in the

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Speaker 1: bone is made with the saw, and once it's detached,

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Speaker 1: it's referred to as the calvarium, which is essentially the

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Speaker 1: roof of skull, so that you can get access to

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Speaker 1: the brain. That the trick is when you're opening a

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Speaker 1: skull at autopsy, you have to make sure that the

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Speaker 1: opening is sufficient to the size of the brain, because

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Speaker 1: if you're trying to take it out. The brain can

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Speaker 1: be described when you're touching it as having kind of

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Speaker 1: a gelatinous texture to it. It's very fragile, and most

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Speaker 1: brains are not immediately dissected. Many times when you dissect

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Speaker 1: a brain, what will happen is you will set it

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Speaker 1: aside and place it into a bucket of formulae, which

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Speaker 1: formulan is a type of formal the hide that's used

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Speaker 1: in a medical context. The ideal thing is to let

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Speaker 1: a brain set up about two weeks before you dissect it,

355
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Speaker 1: because you want it to be firm, and it takes

356
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Speaker 1: that long a time to get it to that consistency.

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Speaker 1: You have to make sure that the incision in the

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Speaker 1: bone is sufficient to the task so that calvarium when

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Speaker 1: you take it off, is that defect that it's created

360
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Speaker 1: by its absence, is large enough so that you can

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Speaker 1: get your fingers around the base of the brain into

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Speaker 1: the floor of the skull when they finally did get

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Speaker 1: their hands inside of the skull, and these doctors would

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Speaker 1: have been doing this bare handed, by the way, in case,

365
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Speaker 1: there was no such thing as a rubber glove at

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Speaker 1: this point on. So everything is done since a touch

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Speaker 1: they're kind of feeling their way around. I would imagine

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Speaker 1: that the room they would have been very respectful. I've

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Speaker 1: always wondered what kind of light source did they use.

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Speaker 1: There is no electricity, so are they doing everything with

371
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Speaker 1: some type of lantern? Perhaps is there another person standing

372
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Speaker 1: there with a lantern that's illuminating the area. Maybe the

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Speaker 1: lantern has a mirror on it to take advantage of

374
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Speaker 1: the reflected light, and you're shining it onto this area.

375
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Speaker 1: But a lot of stuff is having to be done

376
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Speaker 1: by touch.

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Speaker 2: We look at it from the standpoint of what we

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Speaker 2: have now and how we work and how we go

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Speaker 2: about things. But for them, president of the United States

380
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Speaker 2: of America would get the best care and post warning,

381
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Speaker 2: he would get the best of the best at that time.

382
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Speaker 2: So even when we talk about them using their bare hands,

383
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Speaker 2: these are experienced individuals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, these guys would have seen, Dave. I cannot emphasize

385
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Speaker 1: to our listeners how much experience these people would have had.

386
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Speaker 1: Even if you had not been on the battlefield, there

387
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Speaker 1: was so much trauma. I don't know if any point

388
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Speaker 1: in time in our history as a country, the medical

389
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: sciences have been around this level of trauma that they

390
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 1: had witnessed lowthies four to five years prior to this event,

391
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Speaker 1: where you had people's lives just blasted, their bodies are

392
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: just blasted apart, and they're trying to do everything that

393
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 1: you can to save them. These guys would have been

394
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: highly skilled for that day, and highly skilled in the

395
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:05,719
Speaker 1: sense that there was a lot of stuff they were

396
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,199
Speaker 1: having to do blind, and of course it was you know,

397
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Speaker 1: in our eyes, it was very barbaric. There were a

398
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Speaker 1: lot of amputations back then and this sort of thing,

399
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: and the person that was using the saw, Dave. This

400
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:17,439
Speaker 1: would not have been the first time that they had

401
00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: had only saws in their hands. Goes back to the

402
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 1: old adage that I think I've stated before, See one

403
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: do one teach one that gaining this experience through all

404
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: of these cases being thrown at you. But when the

405
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: attendings and there were two, got their hands inside the skull,

406
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 1: one thing that they were able to appreciate was the

407
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,119
Speaker 1: floor of the skull. If you think about the area

408
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:44,119
Speaker 1: that's immediately adjacent up and above, behind, up, up and

409
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,400
Speaker 1: above and behind your eyes. When the doctors got their

410
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 1: their hands into you know what, I guess what you

411
00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: would refer to some people use the term the cranial vault.

412
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Speaker 1: You still you're probing, trying to remove the brain carefully.

413
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,679
Speaker 1: Because the brain is greatly traumatized. Some people might use

414
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 1: a term called mascerated. It's really really chewed up at

415
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: this point as a result of this cavitating injury that's

416
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 1: generated by this rather ample projectile. When you're trying to

417
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 1: remove the brain, you're being very, very delicate, and even

418
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: to this day we try to be very delicate. When

419
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 1: we take a brain out of the skull. You're having

420
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: to trim away all of the connected vessels that are

421
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: coming up into the base of the brain, and also

422
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 1: the optic nerves to try to cut them loose. But

423
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: as they're running their hand on the underside of Lincoln's brain,

424
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: they notice something, they feel something, They know that the

425
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:43,360
Speaker 1: floor of the skull, which directly above the eyes, is uneven.

426
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 1: I have actually cut my finger on the floor of

427
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: a skull before. When I'm running my hand trying to

428
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: remove the brain. You can clip the latex on glove.

429
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: The bones very sharp, So if you have these fractured

430
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: areas which Lincoln did, those bony prominences in there are

431
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: very thin. I mean they are eggshell thin, and the

432
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: edges of those bones become very very sharp. So as

433
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: this bullet is traveling through there, you not only have

434
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 1: the force of the projectile, the mass of that bullet

435
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: traveling through this very delicate tissue creating this cavity, You've

436
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: also got this kinetic energy that's being pressed through there,

437
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: and it comes out in like a wave and you

438
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 1: get these I've turned them as kind of concussive fractures,

439
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: if you will, where this energy is being transferred this

440
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: huge amount of pressure. Because just imagine this, you're creating

441
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,959
Speaker 1: this hole that if you look at the tip of

442
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: your little finger right now, just look down the length

443
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: of it. Think about your little finger that's about at

444
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: the tip of it. That's going to be about the

445
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: size of the hole that this thing would have created.

446
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 1: So you're injecting this energy, this blast, this force through

447
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: this time little hole in an otherwise perfectly sealed environment.

448
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,199
Speaker 1: So where's this energy going to go? Where it's going

449
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,120
Speaker 1: to go. It's going to seek out the weakest points

450
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: and it's going to fracture. But this is significant for

451
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: them because this explained something else that they're seeing manifested

452
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: on Lincoln's body, which had been manifested before they actually

453
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: pronounced him dead, and that was his eyes were swelling,

454
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 1: the right eye in particular, and that gave them an

455
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: indication that that might be where the projectile rested. The

456
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: right eyes swelling. The pupil is completely blown. Now it's

457
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: dilated all the way out, there's no longer any kind

458
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: of nervous control over it. It's open. The eye is

459
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 1: progressively swelling, swelling, swelling, and this is confirming everything that

460
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: they're believing, but it's still it's still a confusing mass

461
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: that they're holding in their hand. They're wanting to get

462
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: to this projectile. They're wanting to find it. And one

463
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: of the doctors, when you're reading over the notes of

464
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: these positions that are involved in this examination, you can

465
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:09,119
Speaker 1: actually sense that they knew what they were doing. And

466
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:12,959
Speaker 1: when I let me rephrase that to this extent, they

467
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: knew what they were involved in. They were involved in

468
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 1: the post warm examination of a man who had led

469
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: the country through this horrible time, which they had borne

470
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: witness to. They had borne witness to it in a

471
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 1: way that no one else had, not even soldiers. They

472
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: had seen kind of the cost in the field hospitals

473
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: and the decisions that he had made along the way.

474
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: They knew that the man's brain that they were holding

475
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:48,400
Speaker 1: in their hands had been making decisions directing the country

476
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: over all of these years. And they described kind of

477
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: the solemnity in that room, the quietness of it. And

478
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 1: the only thing that actually shattered those quiet moments was

479
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: when they finally removed that brain. There's blood and tissue

480
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: that's falling away from it. There's a basin down below

481
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: that's made out of porcelain. You've got this cavernous room.

482
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:16,239
Speaker 1: It's very quiet. Earlier you heard the sound of that

483
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: sobbing drug across the surface of the bone, and all

484
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: of a sudden there was this metal clank sound. It

485
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:30,959
Speaker 1: shattered the silence, absolutely shattered the silence. And what was it?

486
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 1: It was a mushroomed projectile. They never could pinpoint the

487
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: exact location of it, but almost like, I don't know,

488
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: some kind of metaphysical event. The bullet presents itself through

489
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: this announcement that shatters the silence, and you knew. I

490
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: think that they knew from as scientists that they had

491
00:28:53,640 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: found what they were looking for. Any kind of gunshot

492
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: woman that we have nowaday we do X rays prior

493
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: to doing the examination. First off, the configuration of the

494
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: bullet has changed. Because a bullet was a sphere when

495
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: it entered or when it exited that round, but when

496
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: it slammed into the back of the skull and it

497
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: met that bone, the makeup of that bullet changed at

498
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: that moment in time. It reconfigured itself. It's impacting bones,

499
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: so it's creating these little bits of bony shrapnel that

500
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: are being driven out into the brain, and also little

501
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:49,959
Speaker 1: elements of that lead ball are being left behind. And

502
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: an X ray, when we put an X ray up

503
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: on a board on a lightboard, after we've taken this

504
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: X ray of the head, you can actually see a

505
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: little lead storm and it he gives you an idea

506
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: of the track of the round. So you can actually

507
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: if you do if you do a lateral X ray,

508
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: which means on the side X ray the side of

509
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: the head, you know, kind of like when you go

510
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: to get your X rays done at the doctor and

511
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: then you take an X ray face on. Laying the

512
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: face up, you get an idea of directionality. Does it

513
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: cross the midline? Those sorts of things we have that

514
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: advantage nowadays, they didn't. So at best, it's a guess

515
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: at this point in tom as to where it actually

516
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: wind up.

517
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 2: Did the actual autopsy provide closure relieving the doctors and

518
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: attendant surgeons of any responsibility in saving the president? I mean,

519
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 2: was there a thought, had they done something different, he

520
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 2: would not have died. But the autopsy confirmed there was

521
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 2: nothing that could have been done.

522
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: It was actually assessed to be a mortal wound. Look,

523
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: anything that's been said about these physicians and how they

524
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: kind of ran their hands over this wound and they're

525
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: trying to save his life, it's all people being very

526
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: speculative about what was done wrong and what was done right.

527
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: You have to measure it by those times how they

528
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: were limited their ability to make an assessment on a

529
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: patient back then. But look, I got to tell you something,

530
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: these guys that were doing this assessment on the President,

531
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: I would tell you that. Okay, I'll put it to

532
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: you this way. Let's take a modern day surgeon, a

533
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: trauma surgeon, and put them into a field hospital in

534
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three in Gettysburg and have them do physical

535
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: assessment on a patient first off, in a less than

536
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: sterile environment, and without the aid of any kind of

537
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: radiographic assessment. It's tough. It's tough. I think that they

538
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: did the very best that they possibly could. And even

539
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: if he had survived, because it would appear that his

540
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: brain stem was left intact. You know, that's why he lived,

541
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: is for the link that he did. You know, his

542
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: chest to still rising and fall in the autonomic nervous

543
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: system is still intact to a certain degree, breathing, heart beating,

544
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: all those sorts of things. Did he have. Was he conscious? No?

545
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 2: No?

546
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: Would he have remained in a vegetative state? Well, yeah,

547
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: if they could have released the pressure on the skull,

548
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: on the brain, because the brain is going to continue

549
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: to swell. Well, they didn't have the tools. They didn't

550
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: have the medicines that we use, those anti inflammatory things

551
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: that we apply nowadays to try to keep swelling down.

552
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: That stuff didn't exist back then. And so they did

553
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: the best they could with what they had.

554
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: And when everything was said and done, sixteenth President of

555
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 2: the United States of America dead, assassinated and a new

556
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 2: president is worn in, President Johnson.

557
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and with him came came the wrath of what

558
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: was to be known as Reconstruction. I think that probably,

559
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,959
Speaker 1: and again I'm no historian reconstruction. I think took on

560
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: a different a different tenor than it would have otherwise.

561
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, you know, was within a month or so

562
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: after this that John Wilkes Booth is being autopsied. He's

563
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: been autopsied on the deck of the USS montak Up

564
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: in Washington. They had shot him in a barn. The

565
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: round that he took went between the C four and

566
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: the C five cervical vertebra, which they retained. They actually

567
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: kept that at his autopsy. The physicians actually trimmed that

568
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: out and kept it. You can see it in a

569
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: museum in DC to this day. He was immobile for

570
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: about two hours. They say that he lingered for that

571
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: period of time. Some people have said that he had

572
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: vocalized things. Other people say that he remained silent through it.

573
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: One of the famous things was he asked to see

574
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: his hands right before he died and made some kind

575
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: of comment like useless or something like that. But when

576
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: he died, they sewed his body up in an army

577
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: blanket and hauled him down down, put him on a tugboat,

578
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: and took him almost eighty miles away to the Uss Montalk.

579
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: And here's the big question with Booth, because he had

580
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 1: tried to change his appearance. He was known for this

581
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: this mustache they had, Well, he was absent that mustache.

582
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: When they got him, they took him onto the deck

583
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: of that boat, laid him out on a carpenter's table,

584
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: as they put it, and began to autopsy his body there.

585
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: If you want to get an idea of the attitude

586
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: of what happened, the physician that directed Lincoln's autopsy was

587
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: also there for the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth. He

588
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: showed up to the Navy yard and he's he's a

589
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: military officer, but he's an army officer. And when he

590
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: entered onto the deck of that ship, he didn't make

591
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 1: his presence known. And that's what you're supposed to do.

592
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: You're supposed to salute the flag and all those sort

593
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: of things that the Navy does. He went immediately, I

594
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: mean immediately to the body and started just kind of

595
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: he just immediately went in and started doing this autopsy

596
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: on John Wilkes Booth at this moment in time, without

597
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: a lot of fanfare. I mean, they're going at it, man,

598
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 1: They're going to do the autopsy, and that gives you

599
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: an idea there. You know, they were very angry, and

600
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,959
Speaker 1: that's kind of I think demonstrated to a certain degree

601
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 1: in the way they treated boots body, and of course

602
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: Boot's body after they had done the autopsy and assessed it,

603
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: he was eventually buried, but his body was moved around

604
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: and disinturned several times before it finally wound back up

605
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: with a Booth family. So you've got these two men

606
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 1: that literally changed history, with Lincoln and Booths, both ending violently,

607
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:23,439
Speaker 1: their lives ending very very violently. Boot's name is still

608
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: in our lexicon, but maybe it's there for a good

609
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,479
Speaker 1: reason to remember the horror that he, through the single action,

610
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: wrought upon arguably the life of perhaps the best president

611
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:43,439
Speaker 1: we've ever known, Abraham Lincoln. I'm Josephcott Morgan and this

612
00:35:44,320 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: is Bodybags