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U.S. Army doctor Daniel Smith Lamb was a significant figure in the history of American pathology during its formative years. For 55 years (1865-1920), Lamb performed hundreds of autopsies in and around Washington, D.C. and personally collected over 1,500 gross pathology specimens for the Army Medical Museum. His work began at the close of the Civil War and continued on through World War I, contributing substantially to gross pathological and histological studies that documented wartime pathology, thus further contributing to the training of Army doctors. Specimens he collected also include material from autopsies he conducted on President James Garfield, his assassin Charles Guiteau, and other historical figures. Under the auspices of the Army Medical Museum, he conducted autopsies across the city of Washington for the museum's collection, many of which survive to this day at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. He served under 12 U.S. Army Surgeons General and 11 Museum Curators and was noted to be a steadying influence during a time of constant leadership changes at that institution. Lamb was known throughout Washington, D.C. as an advocate of medical education for African-Americans and women. While working at the Museum, he simultaneously served for 46 years as professor of anatomy at Howard University (1877-1923). He wrote seminal histories of the institutions with which he was associated and in so doing also contributed significantly to the study of the history of medicine., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Henry Ware Cattell was a prominent pathologist and medical editor in late 19th and early 20th century America. Strangely, his name is unknown to most medical historians but is more widely known by aficionados of Walt Whitman's poetry. In 1892, Cattell was involved in an incident that abruptly changed his life and decreased his commitment to pathology as a career. Cattell had been serving as the pathologist/prosector for the American Anthropometric Society at the time the poet Walt Whitman died. Cattell, the pathologist for the University of Pennsylvania's Wistar Institute, performed Whitman's autopsy on March 27, 1892; Whitman's brain was removed and was to join those of other prominent American intellectuals who had donated their brains to the Society's "Brain Club," but something went horribly wrong (allegedly, an assistant had dropped the brain and destroyed it) and Cattell kept this a secret. Full of self-doubt, Cattell was anguished about his inadequacies as a pathologist and was extremely worried about how all of this would affect his career when discovered. While still continuing to practice hospital-based pathology, he began to transition into an author and editor. This essay will provide a detailed biographical sketch of Henry Ware Cattell, address his sibling rivalry with his more famous brother James McKeen Cattell, briefly discuss the fad of 19th century intellectuals embracing the pseudo-science of phrenology and their participation in anatomical "brain clubs," and, finally, address the mystery of what happened to Walt Whitman's brain. Clin. Anat. 31:988-996, 2018. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., (© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Context: A Treatise on Pathological Anatomy, published in 1829 by William E. Horner, is the first American textbook on pathology. Several articles have been written on Horner, but they do not evaluate the role that the knowledge he recorded played on the intellectual origin of the discipline of pathology in America. Only one article, published in 1930, deals in some detail with the content of the Treatise. Because of new historiographic standards, this is an opportunity to expand on, and update, that article. Furthermore, Horner's book is now available free online, and print-on-demand paperback copies can be ordered for a modest cost from online booksellers., Objective: To describe the organization and structure of the scientific knowledge found in the Treatise with the intent of demonstrating how this material created the intellectual basis for the origin of pathology as a discipline in America., Design: Using current historiographic standards, the knowledge included in the book is examined and contextualized within the social, professional, and educational conditions existing at the time of publication. The essay also includes biographic data on the author., Results: The Treatise contains important information on the principles, ideas, and practice of pathology in the nineteenth century and illustrates the influence of French literature on the author., Conclusion: The contribution of the Treatise as the first formal textbook on the subject in America is seminal and should be the basis for further historic studies on the organization and structure of scientific knowledge in pathology in America.

John Paul Jones, the "Father of the American Navy," is known for the battletime assertion that he had "not yet begun to fight." His central role in a triumph of scientific forensic identification more than a century after his death is less known. John Paul Jones died in 1792 and was buried in Paris, France. The location of his grave was lost over time and a search for his corpse began in 1899. Remains matching his physical characteristics and circumstance of burial were discovered in 1905 and returned to the United States for a hero's burial. Some questioned the identification at the time and the major source of identifying information has since been shown to contain false information. The published forensic literature fails to address existing critiques of the identification. We provide a substantive analysis and conclude that the available evidence supports the identification of the unknown remains as those of John Paul Jones.

A substantial body of literature exists surrounding the assassination and subsequent pathological examination of President John F. Kennedy. In the first part of this series, we provided a previously undocumented eyewitness account by a neurosurgeon of what transpired in Trauma Room 1 of Parkland Memorial Hospital on November 22, 1963. The current article reviews the copious literature and extensive controversy regarding President Kennedy's wounds. The autopsy report, ballistics data, official reviews of the autopsy data, and Dr. Grossman's observations are correlated in an effort to provide a neuroforensic analysis of the nature of the wounds that President Kennedy sustained. The final article of the series will relate the wounds to the timing of the shots and the location of the President as his limousine traversed Dealey Plaza and will discuss the sites from which the bullets could have been fired.

SUBSTANTIAL LITERATURE EXISTS on the assassination and subsequent pathological examination of President John F. Kennedy. The Warren Report, the United States Government's official report on the assassination, instead of providing definitive answers on the precise cause of President Kennedy's death, sparked intense and on-going debate. Since the publication of the Warren Report in September 1964, many issues have been woven into a wide array of theories concerning the assassination. One element continues to generate debate, namely, the exact sites of the wounds that President Kennedy sustained. A neuroforensic analysis of the wounds, from the perspective of the neurosurgeon, would establish a reasonable hypothesis for the mechanics of the shooting. Eyewitness accounts of the events surrounding the assassination represent one critical source of data for such an analysis. This report provides a previously undocumented neurosurgeon's eyewitness account of what transpired in Trauma Room 1 of Parkland Memorial Hospital on November 22, 1963.

The three major factors causing the decline of nationwide autopsy rates to 0% to 5% are presented in historical perspective. One is the evolution of a perception by the public and doctors that infallible medical practice is a realistic goal in spite of the inevitability of unavoidable errors. Another is the structure of our tort-claim/liability insurance system that results in holding physicians culpable and financially responsible for injuries to patients by unavoidable errors. The third factor is the reluctant neglect of the autopsy by pathologists whose higher priorities are patient-care services. Inadequate funding for services and facilities to offset the lack of any income production has heightened neglect of the service. Remedies are presented for consideration.

This paper recounts a case report from 1853 that describes the circumstances surrounding the death of a young woman, the request for and granting of permission for an autopsy, and exposition of how the autopsy findings were used from the point of view of education, quality control of practice, and vital statistics. There is, in addition, a description of the evolution of the use of the word autopsy.

Every death is unique, but deaths also share similar features that allow them to be grouped into categories. Since its initial description over 800 years ago, the position of coroner has been charged with the determination of manner of death. This determination has been made by examination into the circumstances surrounding death and of wounds on the surface of the body. Over the years, physicians have gained sufficient understanding of the body such that the autopsy became an important part of a death investigation. With additional time, laws were changed so that individuals charged with the determination of manner of death were required to have appropriate training. Death certification is the means by which deaths are grouped together according to similar characteristics. The practice of death certification has led to effective public health programs and the advancement of medical science. The addition of manner of death to the death certificate is an American contribution to vital statistics registration. The purpose of the autopsy report differs from that of the death certificate; the report fully addresses the unique aspects of a death, while the certificate captures the essence of the circumstances surrounding death in a few words.

Between 1912 and 1980, many English language publications analyzed the correlation between clinicians' diagnoses and postmortem examinations. Surprisingly, the percentage of cases with undiagnosed principal underlying diseases or primary causes of death has not diminished during this period. The autopsy's unvarying percentage yield does not indicate a lack of progress, however, since bacterial pneumonia, hepatic cirrhosis, and common tumors were missed routinely in earlier eras but were rarely missed after 1970. Pulmonary embolism remains commonly missed, but the striking recent finding is the emergence of fungal and other systemic infections that were rarely noted in prior eras. Progress in diagnosis and treatment may allow patients to live longer and new or obscure diseases may develop that will often be missed clinically. An appropriately high autopsy rate will be required if medical progress is to continue.