What Killed Lenin? Poison Called Possibility

Washington Times ^ | Sunday, May 6, 2012 | Alex Dominguez

[nickcarraway]

Stress, family medical history or possibly even poison led to the death of Vladimir Lenin, contradicting a popular theory that a sexually transmitted disease debilitated the Soviet Union’s founder, a UCLA neurologist said.

Dr. Harry Vinters and Russian historian Lev Lurie reviewed Lenin’s records Friday for an annual University of Maryland School of Medicine conference that examines the deaths of famous figures.

The conference is held yearly at the school, where researchers in the past have re-examined the diagnoses of figures including King Tut, Christopher Columbus, Simon Bolivar and Abraham Lincoln.

[BigEdLB]

Of course Krushchev had Beria shot six months after Stalin died. So Nikita knew something was up.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I wasn't confusing the cases, I remember an article in American Heritage magazine some years ago. The unwashed hands were significant in conveying the primitive state of medical knowledge at the time. I think it is fair to say that Lincoln's doctors probably did more harm than good.

[Cheburashka]

Of course there is also the fact that Lenin had been shot in August 1918 and it was too dangerous to remove the bullet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kaplan

[Sherman Logan]

Doctors of the time did their best, but often as you say did more harm than good.

In our Civil War about two soldiers died from disease or wounds as opposed to being killed directly in combat. This was, however, much better than any previous war. If I remember rightly, the ratio was 7:1 for the Mexican War and higher than that for the Revolution.

The survival rate for wounded soldiers has gone up spectacularly, to the point where we drastically underestimate the violence of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars because they have caused comparatively few American deaths. This is more a function of the efficiency of the medical care they receive than it is of lowered violence.

The same is probably true of the vaunted decline in the US murder rate. It is largely due to fewer people dying because of better trauma care, not to a reduction in violence. IOW, people are still getting shot at a high rate, but more of them are surviving the experience.

[SunkenCiv]

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Thanks nickcarraway . Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.