By today's medical standards, practices and technology, could Lincoln have survived the assassination? Say they had all of our medical advances and technology, but the same wound from the Derriger that Booth used.
I would say yes and no. I say yes because of the medical breakthroughs that we have had since that time. A bullet could enter the head and the patient could live provided it did not do too much damage. An x-ray may reveal where exactly the bullet is located and thus you would not have the probing fingers. You may have to get clever but the x-ray would say if he could or could not live. I say no because even if the bullet came out he might be in a coma or he might be a vegetable. Alive but not alive.
And to the person who said a President would not get shot: Uh, Ford. Reagan. Heck Reagan had bodyguards everywhere and Hinkley still shot him...
Of course he could have been saved. ... A great deal of damage was done by the attending physicians themselves when they probed the wound with their fingers ... Of course it would only be speculative to say that he could have (ever) returned to "normal". ... He may well have had severe cognitive disabilities which would have caused a "Constitutional crisis".