Abraham Lincoln’s death (and Tecumseh’s Curse)
Monday, May 21, 2007
Once again I am awake at a ridiculous hour on Monday morning. What have I learned?
That President Abraham Lincoln might have survived if today’s medical technology had existed when he was shot in the back of his head in 1865. Last week medical experts took on the case of Abraham Lincoln at the 13th Historical Clinicopathological Conference. Here’s a quote from “Could Modern Medicine Have Saved Lincoln?” in today’s Washington Post:
If Ford’s Theatre had been in Baltimore, if the patient had been taken to the state Shock Trauma Center and if 1865 were 2007 . . . Abraham Lincoln might have survived the gunshot wound to his head.
If he had lived, he would at the very least have been partially blind, unsteady on his feet, numb in certain regions of his body and inarticulate. Nevertheless, he might have been able to think and, after much rehabilitation, communicate.
If only they’d had a DeLorean that could have rushed Lincoln to the year 2007, we totally could have altered history. Uh, wait a second. Lincoln only needed the right side of his brain to run the country, right?
This reminds me of some other fun Lincoln-related topics:
Have you seen the animated TV pilot of Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw-On Head (2006), in which a Civil War-era secret agent serves under President Abraham Lincoln and battles Emperor Zombie? If not, then you must!
Have you read about Tecumseh’s Curse (also called the Curse of Tippecanoe or the astrological Presidential Death Cycle), in which all U.S. presidents elected in a year ending in a zero die in office? President Reagan (elected in 1980) was the first to foil Tecumseh’s curse, due to quick medical attention following the 1981 assassination attempt, and some consider the “curse” to be broken. (Which would be why President Bush the Younger is still wreaking havoc.)
(Did you know there were 14 U.S. presidents before George Washington, who served between 1774 and 1789? That is, if you count being President of the Continental Congress and also count the Presidents under the Articles of Confederation, which proceeded the Constitution. I’m not sure to what degree they had executive powers though. I guess popular opinion is that the country officially “started” under the Constitution in 1789.)
There are a number of Lincoln conspiracy theories. And a number of amazing coincidences between the lives (and assassinations) of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. I remember being fascinated by this list as a kid.
Also, here is a painstaking and unbelievable (if not loony) comparison of the two presidents (including their facial features and pretty much everything else): The Reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln into John Kennedy. Weird. How can some of these coincidences not be made up?
Snopes says: “It’s not difficult to find patterns and similarities between any two marginally-related sets of data.”