The Assassination of Medgar Evers.

In 1995, Dr Martin Dalton published a recounting of his involvement with the first human lung transplant in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. As recalled in that account, the first lung transplant took place in the summer of 1963 in the context of another historical event, the assassination of Medgar Evers. This article is written in follow-up to Dalton's report in hopes of providing more insight into the events surrounding the assassination. This review will discuss the details of the assassination, attempted resuscitation, and the medical evidence presented in the trial of his assassin.

The Oswald injury.

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. John B. Connally, the Governor of Texas, simultaneously was injured in the shooting. Both Kennedy and Connally were transported to and cared for at the Parkland Memorial Hospital. Within 3 hours, the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested and taken to the Dallas City Jail in the Downtown Municipal Building. When the authorities were transferring Oswald from the City to the County Jail at midday on November 24, Jack Ruby shot him as the event was televised and broadcast live to the nation. Oswald was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was operated on by the same surgeons who had attended Kennedy and Connally 2 days previously. This article reviews the operative treatment that Oswald received before discussing the state of abdominal vascular trauma in the 1960s.

A Reevaluation of the Death of Vincent van Gogh: Suicide or Murder? The Need for a Definitive Autopsy.

Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, from an apparent gunshot wound to the belly sustained approximately 30 hours earlier on July 27. Although little is known how Vincent sustained his mortal wound, art historians have long believed that the death was the result of a suicide, a widely accepted "truth" for the mysterious death of the then unknown and now iconic artist. The basis and validity of this suicide narrative is still very hotly debated among van Gogh scholars to this day. We dug deeper into all the circumstantial evidence and testimonies to arrive at a comprehensive overview of the probability that it was likely impossible for Vincent to self-inflict his mortal wound.We used all the available circumstantial evidence related to the day Vincent van Gogh was wounded to present the information and conclusions as if we were before a judge as expert witnesses to answer the question: suicide or murder? If Vincent did not shoot himself in the belly (a red flag in and of itself), whoever inflicted that penetrating wound into his abdomen murdered him. In our study, results from firing the same model revolver that allegedly killed Vincent from various ranges (direct contact, intermediate, and distant) demonstrated within a reasonable degree of medical probability (greater than 50%) that it was not probable for Vincent van Gogh to shoot himself without a described powder burn.With little forensic evidence to rely on 130 years after the suspicious event, many have suggested a respectful exhumation and graveside autopsy utilizing 21 century techniques to bring resolve to this 19 century cold case. This crime, whether suicide or murder, has generated renewed interest and numerous questions surrounding the suspicious death of the most iconic artist of the 19th century. These missing forensic facts will remain buried with all the secrets Vincent took with him to his grave, unless a definitive autopsy is performed. What an autopsy could add to our forensic fact basis and understanding of this intriguing cold case is enormous and further delineated as the next step to answer these difficult, otherwise unanswerable questions and allow us to finally sign off on his death certificate with certainty.It is clearly impossible to definitively prove suicide or murder, but it is also impossible to disprove murder given the data and arguments offered in this analysis. A physician's opinion is based on the material available to him, and in this case, "our opinion as to the cause and manner of death is based on the limited amount of forensic information available. It is, therefore, our opinion, based on that limited information that in all medical probability, the cause of death is not a self-inflicted wound by Vincent van Gogh, and, thus, in all medical probability, a homicide."

Presidential Assassinations: Historical Review with Current Technology.

As many have studied in the past, the real question of a presidential assassination failure or completion of the attempt should focus on the medical outlook, albeit sometimes surgical in nature. In this article, injuries sustained by various assassination attempts will be examined thoroughly to ensure they received the most appropriate medical care possible at that time and, then in turn, evaluate the medical outcomes in light of contemporary medical knowledge. The five presidents include Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Although the advent of Advanced Trauma Life Support has dramatically altered the care of the critically ill patient, it was rehabilitated in response to the orthopedic surgeon listed in the following paragraph.

Tudor military surgery and the management of Sir Martin Frobisher's gunshot wound: Comparison with current treatment.

Sir Martin Frobisher (ca 1535-1594), the famous Elizabethan explorer and privateer, sustained a bullet to the outer plate of his ilium from a low-velocity bullet wound fired at close range from an arquebus, an early form of musket. The bullet was removed, but he subsequently died from gas gangrene. This paper looks at the management of this injury in Tudor times and compares it to current practice. The arrival of gunpowder and the seriousness of the resulting injuries spurred innovation in surgical practice, such that at the time of Frobisher's death, the Tudor military surgeon had considerable expertise and skill. The wound, treated properly, was not serious, but his first surgeon failed to remove the wadding that the bullet took with it. This was recognised as an error at the time. A Tudor surgeon today would note that the surgical management has not really changed since their time, even though they did not understand infection and bacterial contamination. Guidelines on managing gunshot wounds, and most research, is focussed on high-velocity injuries where removal of foreign material (clothing) is mentioned. Low-velocity injuries are treated as "outpatients" and the importance of removing foreign material, especially when the bullet is left in situ, is not mentioned. The inexperienced surgeon of today risks making the same error as Frobisher's surgeon.

In Close Combat: Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's Injuries in the Napoleonic Wars.

Born in Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758, Horatio Nelson was the sixth of eleven children in a working-class family. With the help of his uncle, Maurice Suckling, a captain in the Royal Navy, Nelson began his naval career as a 13-year-old midshipman on the British battleship Raisonnable. His courage and leadership in the battle marked him for promotion, and he rose quickly from midshipman to admiral, serving in the West Indies, East Indies, North America, Europe, and even the Arctic. As his rank ascended, Nelson's consistent strategy was close engagement, an approach that led to success in combat but placed him in direct danger. Thus, Britain's greatest warrior was also her most famous patient: Nelson suffered more injuries and underwent more operations than any other flag officer in Royal Navy history. His career reached a climax off Cape Trafalgar, where he not only led the Royal Navy to victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets but also met his own death.

An analysis of the vascular injuries and attempted resuscitation surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr was the most prominent civil rights leader in the United States in the 1960s. He was shot by an assassin in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After the shooting he was taken to a local hospital where he had an unsuccessful resuscitation for a right subclavian artery transection. Despite the fact that the circumstances around the assassination have been frequently reported and reviewed in the past 50 years, the specific vascular care of the traumatic injury has not been analyzed. This paper reviews the medical aspects of the King assassination and the management of his subclavian injury.

What have we learned from the time trend of mass shootings in the U.S.?

Little is known regarding the time trend of mass shootings and associated risk factors. In the current study, we intended to explore the time trend and relevant risk factors for mass shootings in the U.S. We attempted to identify factors associated with incidence rates of mass shootings at the population level. We evaluated if state-level gun ownership rate, serious mental illness rate, poverty percentage, and gun law permissiveness could predict the state-level mass shooting rate, using the Bayesian zero-inflated Poisson regression model. We also tested if the nationwide incidence rate of mass shootings increased over the past three decades using the non-homogenous Poisson regression model. We further examined if the frequency of online media coverage and online search interest levels correlated with the interval between two consecutive incidents. The results suggest an increasing trend of mass shooting incidences over time (p < 0.001). However, none of the state-level variables could predict the mass shooting rate. Interestingly, we have found inverse correlations between the interval between consecutive shootings and the frequency of on-line related reports as well as on-line search interests, respectively (p < 0.001). Therefore, our findings suggest that online media might correlate with the increasing incidence rate of mass shootings. Future research is warranted to continue monitoring if the incidence rates of mass shootings change with any population-level factors in order to inform us of possible prevention strategies.

Death on a Napoleonic battlefield - Peri-mortem trauma in soldiers from the Battle of Aspern 1809.

On the 21st-22nd of May1809 Napoleon Bonaparte saw his first major defeat on land at the Battle of Aspern, just north-east of Vienna. Of the 167,000 soldiers who fought for the French and Austrian armies, a total of 55,000 died on the battlefield. Salvage excavations prior to the construction of large urban development project (2008-2016) have revealed several burial sites related to the Battle of Aspern. The skeletal remains of 30 soldiers were excavated and underwent a detailed bioarchaeological study to elucidate both the impact of 19th-century military conditions on soldiers in life, as well as how they died on the battlefield. This paper presents the analysis of peri-mortem trauma observed in 21 of the 30 skeletons (70.0%) excavated from the battlefield of Aspern. Following standard criteria in forensic and palaeopathological trauma studies, this study revealed a predominance of ballistic trauma (20 cases in 17 individuals), while only nine individuals (eleven cases) displayed evidence of blunt force trauma. By contrast, no evidence of sharp force trauma was identified in the skeletal remains. These results are discussed within the historic context of the Napoleonic Wars to reconstruct causes of injury and circumstances of death.

Treatment of Gunshot Wounds to Spine During Late 19th Century.

BACKGROUND: The demand for neurosurgical procedures increased drastically in the late 19th century owing to advances in ballistics during the American Civil War and Crimean War. METHODS AND RESULTS: Surgical care for a gunshot wound to the spine relied on skilled identification and removal of the fractured bone. Hemorrhage control and infection prevention were also imperative for improving survival rates. CONCLUSIONS: Although new techniques were implemented, the mortality rate from spinal injuries during this period was staggering. Nevertheless, those 19th century procedural methods provided the basis for present-day treatment for spinal injury patients.

Rampage shootings: an historical, empirical, and theoretical overview.

Rampage shootings is a relatively new term to describe a phenomenon that has a long history. Rampage shootings are mass shootings (generally defined as involving four or more victims), taking place in a public location, with victims chosen randomly or for symbolic purposes. These shootings are isolated events, meaning they are not connected to another criminal act (such as robbery or terrorism). Research suggests that rampage shootings are not a new phenomenon, but have occurred throughout the US since the early 1900s. There is some evidence of an increase in recent years, but definitional differences across studies and data sources make interpreting trends somewhat tenuous. Theories regarding the perpetration of rampage shootings center on masculinity, mental illness, and contagion effects. Policies aimed at preventing rampage shootings remain somewhat controversial and not well-tested in the literature.

Line of fire - what happened at the Wantabadgery seige?

A gunfight between police and a gang of men led by the self-styled "Captain Moonlite", a.k.a. George Scott, occurred on 16th November 1879 at a farmhouse near Wantabadgery Station in the colony of New South Wales. The skirmish resulted in the deaths of two bushrangers and one police officer. As a result, Captain Moonlite and Thomas Rogan were hung in Sydney's Darlinghurst Gaol on 20 January 1880 for the murder of Constable Edward Webb-Bowen. Culpability for firing the fatal shot, however, has remained a source of controversy. Information obtained from an analysis of historical records was used to guide an archeological excavation at the scene of the shooting in which Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) technology was employed to produce a digital (3D) terrain model of the siege location. Utilizing the terrain model, the relative positions of Moonlite, Webb-Bowen, and the other gang members were established with possible projectile trajectories plotted. This, in combination with inquest evidence from a gun maker and the medical practitioner who examined Constable Webb-Bowen's wound, indicates that the most likely shooter was Gus Warnicke, aged 15 years, the youngest member of the gang, who was also killed in the exchange of fire.

The death of Ben Hall.

Ben Hall was a nineteenth-century Australian bushranger (outlaw) who was shot and killed by colonial police on May 5 1865. Popular belief is that Hall was shot while sleeping in his camp bedding. This contrasts with the official police version of Hall being shot while attempting to escape by running away. To evaluate this divergence of opinion a study of the gun belt allegedly worn by Hall at the time of his fatal shooting was undertaken. This revealed a nineteenth-century belt with a defect corresponding to an oblique bullet hole. The shelving was in keeping with the shooter being located to the rear and left of the decedent, in a position corresponding to police reports. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the presence of lead, in addition to mercury, silver and sulfur, materials used as primers in nineteenth century ammunition. Thus, contemporary examination of the belt provides support for the police version of events.

"Yes, I Shot the President, but His Physicians Killed Him." The Assassination of President James A. Garfield.

President James A. Garfield suffered two gunshots on July 2, 1881, but did not die until 80 days later of complications from sepsis. He might have survived had his injuries not been contaminated, either by the gunshots themselves or the interventions that followed. "Yes, I shot the president," said Charles Guiteau, Garfield's assassin, "but his physicians killed him." The drama of Garfield's struggle to survive his injuries evoked enormous national interest, a harbinger of the medical dramas and documentaries of today. D. Willard Bliss, a former Civil War surgeon, and his handpicked consultants underwent daily scrutiny by the professional community and lay press. As the President died because of his injuries, the surgeons' reputations suffered. A primary criticism was the supposed lack of antiseptic interventions in Garfield's care, especially when probing the wound with unwashed hands. Inserting a finger into the wound, however, was a basic part of examination of a gunshot wound at the time. Many American surgeons had not accepted Listerian antisepsis at the time of the event, and aseptic techniques, such as scrupulous handwashing and surgical gloves, had not yet been developed. In the context of surgical practice of the era, his surgeons followed the standards of care of the time.

Old Hickory's Violent Past Medical History.

The past medical history (PMH) of Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) reflects one of the emblematic nicknames in Americana, "Old Hickory." As a 14-year-old Rebel volunteer in the Revolutionary War, he survived a blow from a British saber and smallpox that he contacted in a prison camp epidemic. In 1806, Jackson challenged a rival who had made the mistake of maligning his beloved wife Rachel. He deliberately allowed his opponent to shoot him in the chest, and then killed him when he took his turn. A gunshot shattered his arm in an 1813 street fight that involved Thomas Hart Benton, who later became his ally in the United States Senate during his presidency. His PMH would not include a duel in 1787, where both parties shot and somehow missed; an escape from a party of Indians in 1791; a shootout in 1796 with the future governor of Tennessee; and in 1833 and 1835, the first two assassination attempts on a United States President. Wracked from a lifetime of maladies and wounds, he sought relief through heavy doses of nostrums laced with heavy metals and self-phlebotomy. He likely hastened his own death. The PMH gives perspective on a patient's present condition. In Jackson's case, it reveals traits that allowed him to survive and thrive in a dangerous age. His belligerence, fiery temper, and intransigence were qualities that led to success in war against the British and the Native American tribes of the southern United States, and in a political career that climaxed as the seventh United States President.