DISTURBING DETAILS FOUND IN ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S AUTOPSY REPORT
By ELIZABETH MAXHAM
History - Science
On April 14, 1865 — just days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee — Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedic play "Our American Cousin." Booth burst through the theater box's inner door and shot Lincoln in the back of his head with a .44 caliber derringer pistol.
Lincoln’s autopsy report revealed that the bullet entered through the occipital bone, about one inch left of center and just above the left lateral sinus. It lodged itself in the white matter of the cerebrum, damaging the left lateral ventricle in the process and filling the brain with blood. The track of the bullet was found littered with clotted blood, bone, and the bullet’s fragments.
Externally, the area around Lincoln's eyes was discolored, and his eyes themselves were slightly bulging, which was the result of the build-up of blood in this area. When Army Surgeon Edward Curtis washed and weighed the brain, he found that it was of ordinary size and weight, apart from the sections damaged in the shooting.