John K. Lattimer
John Kingsley Lattimer, MD was a urologist who did extensive research on the Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy assassinations, becoming the first medical specialist not affiliated with the United States government to examine the medical evidence related to Kennedy's assassination. Lattimer studied at Columbia University and became the urologist-in-chief of Presbyterian Hospital and chairman of the urology department at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University for 25 years. He wrote 375 papers helping to establish pediatric urology as a field and is credited with developing a cure for renal tuberculosis.
US Army doctor, World War II
During World War II, Dr. Lattimer served as an army physician and treated D-Day casualties in the field. Lattimer was attached to General George Smith Patton's Third Army and participated in Patton's drive across France. Lattimer frequently related a story where, on the occasion of Patton's first crossing of the Rhine River, he observed the General stop in the middle of a bridge and urinate over the side into the river.Lattimer was assigned to the prisoners' barracks at Nuremberg in the spring of 1945, where notorious inmates like Hermann Göring were housed during their war crimes trial. Lattimer served as general medical officer during the Nuremberg Trials, attending to the medical needs of the war crimes defendants. Lattimer was on hand at Nuremberg prison to view Göring's body just after Göring had committed suicide in his prison cell by biting a cyanide capsule that he had kept concealed in a jar of medicinal cream.
Lattimer retired having attained the rank of colonel.
Biography of Nazi leaders
In 1999, Lattimer wrote Hitler's Fatal Sickness and Other Secrets of the Nazi Leaders based largely on this experience. In this book he theorized that Hitler exhibited the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, which he demonstrates with examples of his deteriorating signature and photographs of Hitler clutching objects to prevent his hand from trembling. Lattimer further proposed that Hitler's discovery of his illness was a factor in postponing Germany's attack on Britain in late 1940 and directing his attention towards Russia.Innovator in Urology at Columbia-Presbyterian
After the war, Lattimer spent most of the rest of his life teaching at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he was a professor and became chairman of the urology department of Presbyterian Hospital from 1955 to 1980.At the Hospital, which in 1998 became NewYork–Presbyterian, the head of the Department is known as the John K. Lattimer Professor of Urology. His patients included Katharine Hepburn, Charles Lindbergh, Dmitri Shostakovich, Itzhak Perlman and Greta Garbo.