A Finger in Lincoln's Brain: What Modern Science Reveals about Lincoln, His Assassination, and Its Aftermath

by E. Lawrence Abel

This intriguing book examines Lincoln's assassination from a behavioral and medical sciences perspective, providing new insights into everything from ballistics and forensics to the medical intervention to save his life, the autopsy results, his compromised embalming, and the final odyssey of his bodily remains.

In this book, E. Lawrence Abel sheds much-needed light on the fascinating details surrounding the death of Abraham Lincoln,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1440831181
• ISBN13: 9781440831188
• Release Date: January 2015
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

We need an editor, please!

Being a huge fan of all things related to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, I was very intrigued to read this book when I first encountered it. However, I was very disappointed. I gained a few tidbits about Lincoln’s death and the aftermath, such as his 17 re-burials. But I found that I had to force myself to finish the book as the writing was so poor (or the editing). Three examples should suffice. In chapter 13 we read the observations of those who watched Lincoln’s funeral procession in Washington D.C., including a man who’s first and only mention in book is found on page 152: “From the hospital in which he was recovering from his wounds, Colonel Selden Connor (the future governor of Maine) heard…”. What wounds? How was he wounded? Where’s “the rest of the story”? On page 137, we’re told how “Sherman’s simple seven-word telegram, ‘Atlanta is ours, and fairly won,’ put Lincoln back into the White House.” Isn’t that message seven words? Students of the Civil War know that Sherman’s telegram actually read “So Atlanta is ours, and fairly won.” THAT is seven words. Finally, this extensive run-on sentence on page 148 takes several runs to work through and decipher: “On Monday evening, April 16, the undertakers carried the coffin Lincoln would lie in up to the guest room, where Lincoln’s body, now clothed in the Brooks Brother black suit he had worn on March 4, 1865, six weeks earlier, for his second inauguration, was still on the table where he had been embalmed.” This book would benefit from the services of an editor!