On September 10, 1856, Abraham Lincoln wrote an affidavit in a medical malpractice case that involved chicken bones. It was the first medical malpractice case in McLean County.
A small number, less than one percent, of Lincoln’s cases required management of medical expert witnesses. He participated in at least thirty-nine medical-related cases, plus many of his forty-four murder cases needed such expertise. In this case, Lincoln creatively used chicken bones. Samuel Fleming suffered two broken legs when the chimney of a house fell on him during a raging fire in Bloomington, Illinois. Physicians Thomas Rogers and Eli Crothers set the severely damaged bones, saving both legs against the odds. Unfortunately, the right leg healed crooked and slightly shorter than the left. Rogers and Crothers agreed to reset the crooked right leg but Fleming stopped them midway complaining of unendurable pain. He then sued the doctors for malpractice. Defending the doctors, Lincoln demonstrated the difference in pliability between young and old bones using chicken bones. He argued that the doctors could have used the normal remedy for such damage by amputating both legs, but Fleming insisted on saving them.
As with so many cases, this one eventually resulted in a settlement, but Lincoln showed that he understood basic medical principles and could be creative in communicating them to a jury.
On this date in 1863, Lincoln was also involved in a medical case of a sort. He sent Dr. John Gray to Norfolk, Virginia to examine and collect evidence on the sanity or insanity of Dr. David Wright. Wright was a Unionist who stayed in Norfolk when the war started, but one day in June he encountered a column of U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) led by a white officer, Lt. Alanson Sanborn. Angry over the presence of black troops, Wright began yelling at them to leave. Sanborn ordered Wright to leave, but instead, Wright pulled his pistol and shot Sanborn, killing him. Wright pleaded temporary insanity (which had worked for Congressman Dan Sickles). Lincoln asked Gray to determine the case. Wright was found sane, convicted by a military commission, and hanged.
Without prejudice or malpractice.
[Adapted from my forthcoming Lincoln book, due out in 2022]
[Graphic is a Lloyd Ostendorf print]
David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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