Woodrow Wilson

========> UNDER CONSTRUCTION <========

President #28.

Lived: 1856·1924.		Served: 1915·1921.

Timeline:

<== 2009
|<== 1776

Maladies = late reader · eye twitches · eyeglasses habit · atherosclerosis · terrible teeth · stroke #1 · stroke #2 · stroke #3 · cerebro-vascular events #4,5,6 · cerebro-vascular events #7,8 · cold · hypertensive headaches? · pre-stroke · stroke · sanity? · complicity ·· Odds & Ends ·· Resources

Maladies and Conditions

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late reader	Wilson did not learn the alphabet until he was 9 years old, and could not read until he was 12. This raises the possibility he had a learning disability, perhaps similar to dyslexia [13]. Wilson eventually earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and became President of Princeton.
eye twitches	[5a]
eyeglasses habit	Wilson had an annoying habit of busily polishing his eyeglasses while people were talking to him [3a].
atherosclerosis	His physician missed the signs of Wilson's atherosclerosis before becoming president. [5b]
terrible teeth	A photograph of Wilson on the day of his 1913 inauguration shows astonishingly bad teeth [see photo [More] ]. Comment: This is relevant to Wilson's later stroke(s) because poor dentition has been suspected to increase the risk of atherosclerotic disease.
stroke #1	Dr. E. A. Weinstein has carefully analyzed Wilson's medical history in a book [14]. He finds evidence of multiple strokes. Wilson's first stroke was in May 1896. It caused marked weakness of the right upper limb plus sensory disturbances in the fingers. The finger problems were mis-diagnosed as neuritis. Wilson was unable to write normally for almost a year afterwards. Comment: There may be some dispute about this event, in a later article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
stroke #2	In June 1904 Wilson developed weakness in the right upper limb that lasted for several months [14].
stroke #3	On May 28, 1906, Wilson suddenly lost vision in his left eye. This persisted. Weakness of the right upper limb was present [14].
cerebro-vascular events #4,5,6	Wilson had multiple other neurological events that were presumably vascular in origin [14]: November 1907 -- Developed weakness and numbness of fingers or right upper limb that lasted several months; July 1908 -- Two attacks of "neuritis" affecting the right upper limb; December 1910 -- Transitory weakness of the right hand.
cerebro-vascular events #7,8	Wilson's problems with blood circulation in his brain and eyes continued after he became President [14]: April 1913 -- Attack of "neuritis" involving right upper limb; May 1914 -- Abnormal retinal arteries observed; May-Sept. 1915 -- Episodes of transient weakness in his right hand.
cold	On what must have been a slow news day, the President's cold was front-page news in the New York Times on Dec. 12, 1913 [1] [More] -- underneath a story about the 70-pound weight loss achieved by former President William Taft.
hypertensive headaches?	From 1915 to 1919 Wilson had episodic severe headaches, lasting for days. It is possible these were due to [uncontrolled] hypertension [14].
pre-stroke	In September 1919 Wilson was having severe headaches, double vision, and signs of a weakened heart. On Sept. 25 he developed a transitory weakness on the left side of his body [14].
stroke	Wilson suffered a catastrophic, disabling stroke while President (Oct. 3, 1919), as recounted in multiple sources [4a] [5c] [7a] [8a], including an entire book on the subject [11]. (Any biography covering Wilson's presidential years should devote extensive coverage to this event.) This was the most serious illness suffered by any sitting President. Wilson had bad headaches before becoming president, but presidential physician Cary Grayson ascribed the stroke to a thrombosis, stating it was not hemorrhagic [4b]. Wilson's condition was hidden from his Cabinet, from the Vice President and, of course, from the public. This could only be done by keeping Wilson physically isolated. Some members of the Cabinet were uneasy. On Oct. 5, 1919, ex-President Taft wrote to A. L. Lowell [9a]: [Secretary of the Treasury] McAdoo says the President [Wilson] is in a state of collapse -- that his mind is clear but that he is so weak that his doctors would not permit him to discuss or think about any of these matters. ... He says that he would like to help, but he is in a delicate situation, being the son-in-law of the President. Taft was no fan of Woodrow Wilson, but it is interesting that even an ex-President in the opposing political party did not (could not?) act on behalf of the people.
sanity?	After his stroke, Wilson was driven around in his car and took the opportunity to apprehend speeders! [5d] This may be an exaggeration, however. Dr. Mark Benbow of the Woodrow Wilson House reports that "He didn't actually try to catch speeders himself, but he did send his secret service agents after them in their separate car. They would usually come back and claim that the speeder was going too fast so they could not catch them. Wilson also asked his Attorney General if he had the power to give speeding tickets. The Attorney General said no. This probably started before Wilson had his stroke. The speed limit in Washington then was 22 mph" [2] [? source = "Starling of the White House"]. Wilson used to tease his family and friends at the dinner table asking "Well, who's been pinched today?" [14a].
complicity	His physician conspired to keep the extent of Wilson's disability secret, along with Mrs. Wilson. Wilson's chief of staff, Tumulty, was even cut out. (Tumulty's son later became chief of internal medicine at Johns Hopkins.) To do: Talk about the tumble that may have changed history -- led to selection of both Wilson's and FDR's incompetent physicians.

Odds & Ends

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Wilson's first wife died of renal tuberculosis, in the White House [5e].
Unlike James Polk and William McKinley, both of whom carefully studied the art of shaking hands, Wilson's handshake was described as "a ten-cent pickled mackerel in brown paper" [3a].
When Wilson suffered his collapse (stroke) while campaigning for the League of Nations, former President Taft, although a supporter of the League, was critical: "He has so insisted on hogging all the authority -- trusting no one -- that he has broken himself down" [10a].
From [12a]:
There is a story told of Wilson that he asked a caller if he knew the hardest job a President faced every day.
"No," was the response, "because I have never been President."
"I'll tell you then," replied Wilson, "it is in keeping your temper."
Physicians called to consult on Wilson's stroke by Presidential physician Dr. Cary T. Grayson were [4b]: Dr. Sterling Ruffin, Dr. Edward Stitt, Dr. Francis Dercum, Dr. Henry Fowler, Dr. Hugh Young, Dr. George De Schweinitz, and Dr. Charles Mayo. At intervals, Dr. Edward Davis would confer with Grayson about Wilson's case. In Wilson's final illness, Drs. Ruffin and Fowler were again called in consultation [4c].
Two years before becoming First Lady, Mrs. Warren Harding said: "I've seen the inside of the White House. The office is killing Wilson as surely as if he had been stabbed at his desk. Don't ask Warren to run." [12b]
Wilson dropped the use of his first name (Thomas) in a "search for something more sonorous and distinctive." [6a]

Resources

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Disclosure: Doctor Zebra gets a few pennies if you click & buy from Amazon.

Books (ranked by Amazon.com sales)		More


Woodrow Wilson (Penguin Lives) Louis Auchincloss	Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World WarII Jim Powell	Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World Margaret Macmillan

Resources used by Dr. Zebra

Anonymous. President Wilson Ill Again. New York Times. December 12, 1913; Page 1.
Benbow, Mark. Personal communication. July 2, 2003.
Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-502915-1 @ Amazon [a] p. 218
Grayson, CT. Woodrow Wilson -- An Intimate Memoir. New York: Holt, Rhinehart, Winston, 1960. [a] pp. 96-100 [b] p. 100 [c] p. 110
Grayson was Wilson's physician during his entire tenure as President. No presidential physician before or since Grayson has had as close a relationship with the Chief Executive. It is remarkable that, in his book, Grayson devotes only one paragraph to Wilson's stroke (page 100).
MacMahon, Edward B. and Curry, Leonard. Medical Cover-Ups in the White House. Washington, DC: Farragut, 1987. ISBN 0-918535-01-8 @ Amazon [a] p. 65 [b] p. 5 [c] pp. 56-77 [d] p. 75 [e] p. 64
Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh (ed). Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of American. 2nd ed. London: Burke's Peerage Limited, 1981. ISBN 0-85011-033-5 @ Amazon [a] p. 433
Enumerates the ancestors and descendants of American presidents up through Ronald Reagan.
Park, Bert Edward. The Impact of Illness of World Leaders. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. ISBN 0-8122-8005-9 @ Amazon [a] pp. 3-76
Post, Jerrold M. and Robins, Robert S. When Illness Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-300-06314-8 @ Amazon [a] pp. 85-90
At one time Post worked for the CIA, profiling foreign leaders.
Pringle, Henry F. The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939. [a] p. 927
Ross, Ishbel. An American Family: The Tafts - 1678 to 1964. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1964. [a] p. 316
Smith, Gene. When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1964.
Stoddard, Henry L. It Costs to Be President. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. [a] p. 126 [b] pp. 22, 81
Stoddard was editor and owner of the New York Evening Mail from 1900 to 1925.
Web page: http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/funfacts.htm
(From the web site of the Woodrow Wilson house in Washington, DC (9 Jul 03))
Weinstein, Edwin A. Woodrow Wilson: A Medical and Psychological Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981. [a] p. 260 per Dr. Benbow
The Woodrow Wilson web page at the White House.
(19 matches when checked in November 2003)

Alternate index terms: Medical history of President Wilson, Medical history of Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

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