Abraham Lincoln: the Brains to be a Book Agent
Lincoln had cancer and he was about to die, right before the bullet got him first. Or at least I think so. I'm a cardiologist who doesn't work on cancer research. So let's run his DNA and find out. This is the case that John Sotos has put before the little room of folks who apparently decide how to allocate the bits of Abraham Lincoln's brain matter and blood that was left on a pillowcase, a pillowcase that made its way to Philadelphia. This is the subject of a really bizarre article about Lincoln in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The whole case would make a great episode of House; it has the all-too-curious researcher who is simply unconcerned about the degree to which Americans - not just Lincoln's family - believe in the sanctity of the dead bodies of our forefathers and other beloved elders. When it is allowed there is a good reason, typically: most Americans believe that Lincoln was already exhumed to prove that he had Marfan syndrome, which he wasn't. And most disapprove of it, even though it didn't happen. In this case, a man who has written a book whose strongest review is that it was one of the 8 best books about Lincoln, which purports to explain everything from his headaches to why he would have died within a year even if he hadn't been shot, has said lincoln had a rare form of cancer. No, this is not a cancer researcher and no there is no reason to believe that knowing whether or not lincoln had this cancer would advance anything about diagnosis or treatment of multiple endocre neoplasia type 2B.
Lincoln has already been put through every kind of People Magazine investigation in the past 200 years, and 140 years ago as of the date of your show we note that he didn't die the happiest death in the first place. The man who stopped the civil war didn't die because he had cancer or marfan syndrome. So there needs to be a better reason than proving the theory in last year's "8th best book about president lincoln" before we turn him, one more time, into a disease rather than a president.
Ethically, it is obviously wrong. Not because we shouldn't look at dead people or learn from them: cadavers teach medical students, Lenin is under glass at london school of economics, and bits of the DNA solve crimes so often that CBS could probably get away with a CSI show based in Boise Idaho. The problem isn't the family's permission, either. When you get this many generations out, the family's role in dictating the fate of remains of a dead president really don't trump much. The problem is that Lincoln is not in fact doing a service for anyone here, apart from Dr. John Sotos, a cardiologist who actually writes for House, and his publisher.
- Glenn McGee
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Correction - I mistakenly typed endocre instead of endocrine, potentially confusing any reader who wants to decode MEN2B, or at least to translate it into the actual cancer that it is being alleged was the culprit in virtually all Lincoln's ailments.
- by Glenn McGee on Apr 13, 2009 at 5:12 PM | link
By an odd coincidence, I have read Dr. Sotos's book, and can tell you that you have mis-characterized the rigor and depth of the analysis it presents. It is a remarkable piece of work, and the case he makes for the diagnosis is surprisingly strong. Moreover, Sotos presents a number of bona fide historical mysteries that would be answered if the diagnosis proves correct. He discusses the ethics of testing, and concludes, rightly, I think, that Lincoln himself would have eagerly assented to testing. The way I look at it, he has, in a true scientific way, made a prediction, and now seeks to test his prediction by analyzing a piece of cloth. I just looked at the Philadelphia Inquirer web site, where they have a poll running, and 73% of 5500 respondents say testing should proceed.
- by Tim Wilkinson on Apr 14, 2009 at 1:27 AM | link