There are enough books written about Abraham Lincoln to erect a tower measuring eight feet around and 34 feet high. The tower, at the Ford's Theatre Center for Education and Leadership in Washington, D.C., holds 7,000 books - less than half of the total tomes about Lincoln, according to a 2012 National Public Radio article.
Wayne State University Professor Ernest Abel, Ph.D., says none of them look at the medical treatment the president received after being shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
His does.
"A Finger in Lincoln's Brain: What Modern Science Reveals about Lincoln, His Assassination and Its Aftermath" ($48, Praeger Press) by Dr. Abel, writing as E. Lawrence Abel, explores the president's medical treatment, the science of embalming and more. The book, released in January on the 150th anniversary year of Lincoln's death, is available for hardcover and ebook purchase on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble and BarnesandNoble.com
The book is already getting attention. He was invited to speak April 18 at the United States National Archives End of Civil War Book Fair, will travel to Massachusetts for book signings next month and is slated to speak to Mensa's Southeast Michigan chapter in September.
"Most people who write about this are historians and they're more into when it happened, where it happened and why, not how it happened," said Dr. Abel, a dual-appointed professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychology. "I deal with subjects like ballistics, forensics, aspects of the assassination, where the assassin was standing, what kind of gun he used, how it killed him."
The author carefully scrutinizes the medical treatment Lincoln received, including reviewing the standards of care of the time, and examines the debate about whether the three doctors who inserted their fingers into the bullet hole enlarged the wound and increased the internal bleeding that eventually killed their patient. Dr. Abel asks whether Lincoln have been saved if he had been shot today.
He also explores how assassin John Wilkes Booth's syphilis may have played a role in the assassination, and the effect of Lincoln's funeral and a multi-city tour of his body on the American public.
"They wanted people to be upset. They wanted to make sure the Democrats didn't have any sympathy. The more they showed the body, the more people didn't like anything that didn't support what he did while in office," he added.
Dr. Abel began gathering information for the book 10 years ago, at first setting out to write a psychological analysis of the 16th president of the United States. The West Bloomfield resident would wake as early as 5 a.m. to write, then spend nights and weekends on the project, interviewing physicians, dermatologists, ophthalmologists and mortuary science experts at Wayne State. "I rewrite at least 10 or 20 times. I can't even estimate how many hours I put into it," he said. "I've always had this dual interest in history and science, and I've always wanted to find a way to put the two together."
"A Finger in Lincoln's Brain" is Dr. Abel's third book in the historical genre. He also wrote 1982's "Marijuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years," a complete history of the cannabis plant and its relationship to mankind, and 2000's "Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy," which explores the effect of music on confederate nationalism.
He has written 42 books as Ernest L. Abel, including many on fetal alcohol syndrome, one of his research foci at Wayne State. Dr. Abel formerly directed the school's C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, and was the scientific director of its Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Center.