Time Travel

The Day Lincoln Was Shot

Medical transcription has been around for many years. Many of today’s transcriptionists jokingly say they have been transcribing since the beginning of time. What follows is the actual transcribed medical report written by Dr. Charles A. Leale on April 14, 1865.

In searching the records of the Surgeon General in the National Archives in Washington, DC, researcher Helena Iles Papaioannou recently discovered a copy of a 21-page report written by Dr. Charles A. Leale, a 23-year-old army doctor who was the first to attend to President Lincoln in the Ford's Theater on that fateful day in 1865. The record that was found was a handwritten transcript of the hours between the time of the shooting and the time of President Lincoln’s death. This report is the collaborative effort between a treating physician and the medical transcriptionist.

• The complete handwritten transcript can be seen here.
• A typed transcript is also available here.