Presidential health, egos, and deceit

I just finished The President is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo. Click on the picture to read the blue print for a synopsis. I never knew that Grover Cleveland had secret surgery to remove a growth on the roof of his mouth while at sea, did you? I found it fascinating to read of the economic upheavals of 1893 and Cleveland's decision to keep his health problems a secret.

But then, think how often the public has not been told the "whole story." FDR's paralysis was glossed over, Woodrow Wilson suffered a massive stroke which was kept under wraps for seventeen months, Kennedy had Addison's a renal disease, and Nancy Reagan tried to pass off the excision of a skin cancer from President Reagan's face as a pimple.

James A. Garfield did not try to hide his medical condition but his doctors did after the attempted assassination of Garfield just four months after being sworn in as president in 1881. The bullet that entered his body did not kill him, but the lack of sterile medical care did. It is surmised that the dirty fingers of doctors probing his wound for the bullet caused the infection which eventually took his life eighty days later.

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard is a fascinating telling of the medical care provided Garfield and of the egos of doctors which prevented them from doing what was best for their patient. An English surgeon, Joseph Lister, had proven the worth of the sterile, aseptic conditions in the late 1860's but American surgeons were slow to accept his methods. By 1893, Cleveland was afforded sterile conditions while undergoing surgery while on a yacht on Long Island Sound. He lived 15 more years. Part of the reason for Cleveland's cover up, other than the turbulent financial and political times, was the public's recent memory of the horrible death of President Ulysses S. Grant from throat cancer in 1885. Perhaps they smoked too many cigars.

I found both books to be very interesting and enjoyed the additional tidbits of historical and medical information from the late 1800's.

I very much enjoyed some months back, this book, The River of Doubt also by Candice Millard. It is the story of the exploration of an unknown river in the Amazon region of Brazil by Theodore Roosevelt and his son, Kermit in 1914. And yes, it almost killed Roosevelt to do so.