Abraham Lincoln: Receding Hairline

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	The Health and Medical History of President
	Abraham Lincoln: Receding Hairline

receding hairline

Lincoln is generally not thought of as bald, but a photo showing the top of his head in November 1863 (while giving the Gettysburg address) discloses significant temporal recession of his hairline. [See photo ]

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A detail from the photograph is below:

Lincoln is the man in the middle of the crowd, with head bent. Note the prominent "widow's peak."

This is the only known photograph of Lincoln delivering the famously short Gettysburg address. No doubt the photographer expected to have more time to take pictures.

The Library of Congress web site supplied this photo.

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

Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-502915-1 @ Amazon [a] p. 133
Bumgarner, John R. The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician's Point of View. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, 1994. ISBN 0-89950-956-8 @ Amazon [a] p. 89 [b] pp. 91-94 [c] p. 95
Devotes one chapter to each President, through Clinton. Written for the layperson, well-referenced, with areas of speculation clearly identified, Dr. Zebra depends heavily on this book. Dr. Bumgarner survived the Bataan Death March and has written an unforgettable book casting a physician's eye on that experience.
Davidson, Glen W. Abraham Lincoln and the DNA controversy. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 1996;17(1):1-26.
Fishman RS; Da Silveira A. Lincoln's craniofacial microsomia. Arch Ophthalmol. 2007; 125: 1126-1130.
Gary, Ralph. Following Lincoln's Footsteps. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001. ISBN 0-7867-09413 @ Amazon [a] p. 227 [b] p. 58 [c] p. 307 [d] p. 313 this comment was from soldiers in Fredericksburg, VA, April 1863 [e] p. 397
Goldstein JH. Lincoln's vertical strabismus. J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 1997 Mar-Apr;34(2):118-20.
Good, Timothy S. (ed). We Saw Lincoln Shot. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87805-778-1 @ Amazon
Gordon AM. Abraham Lincoln: a medical appraisal. Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association. 1962;60:249-253. Pubmed.
A brilliant work of historical research and medical deduction. MEN2B was unknown in 1962, so Gordon got as close as he could.
Herndon, William H. and Weik, Jesse W. Herndon's Life of Lincoln. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1942 (originally published 1888). [a] p. 18
Hirschhorn N, Feldman RG, Greaves IA. Abraham Lincoln's blue pills: did our 16th President suffer from mercury poisoning?. Perspect Biol Med. 2001;44:315-332. Pubmed.
Kunhardt, Philip B, et al. Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. ISBN 0-679-40862-2 @ Amazon
Lamon, Ward Hill. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. Washington, DC: Dorothy Lamon Teillard, 1911. [a] p. 161
Lattimer JK. The wound that killed Lincoln. JAMA. 1964;187:480-489.
Lattimer JK. Lincoln did not have Marfan syndrome; documented evidence. N Y State J Med. 1981;81:1805-1813. Pubmed.
A failed challenge to the idea that Lincoln was marfanoid.
Lattimer, John K. Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical & Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. ISBN 0-15-152281-2 @ Amazon
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. 19
Marion, Robert. Was George Washington Really the Father of our Country?. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0-201-62255-6 @ Amazon [a] pp. 88-124 [b] p. 100 [c] pp. 108, 110. Marion believes Lincoln had mitral valve prolapse syndrome, which shares some of the skeletal features of Marfan syndrome. [d] p. 93 [e] p. 104
McKusick, Victor A. Mendelian Inheritance in Man. 9th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
Later print editions have appeared, e.g. the 12th in 1998: Amazon (ISBN is 0801857422). The entire contents are freely available on the web as "Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM)." The online version is more current than the printed version.
McKusick VA. Advisory statement by the panel on DNA testing of Abraham Lincoln's tissue. Caduceus. 1991;7(1 Spring):43-47. Pubmed.
McKusick VA. Abraham Lincoln and Marfan syndrome. Nature. 1991;352:280 only.
Web page: http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/content_inside.asp?ID=217&subjectID=3
(Mr Lincoln's White House.org)
Myers, James E. The Amazing Saber Duel of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln-Herndon Building, 1968.
Cited by Gary.
Neely, Mark E. Jr. Rattling Lincoln's bones. Lincoln Lore: Bulletin of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum. August 1990; nbr 1818:1-4.
Pyeritz RE, McKusick VA. The Marfan syndrome: diagnosis and management. N Engl J Med. 1979;300:772-777. Pubmed.
Pendel, Thomas F. Thirty-Six Years in the White House. Washington: Neale Publishing Company, 1902.
Pendel was door-keeper at the White House from the time of Lincoln to the time of Theodore Roosevelt. Full text is available on-line at loc.gov. It's a rather dry book, and reads as if it were written by an old man. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?lhbcbbib:1:./temp/~ammem_rEou::
Rafuse, Ethan S. Typhoid and turmoil: Lincoln's response to General McClellan's bout with typhoid fever during the winter of 1861-62. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. 1997;18(2):1-16.
Ready T. Access to Presidential DNA denied. Nature Medicine. 1999;5:859. Pubmed.
Schwartz H. Abraham Lincoln and the Marfan syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1964;187:473-479. Pubmed.
Schwartz H. Abraham Lincoln and aortic insufficiency. The declining health of the President. California Medicine. 1972;166(5):82-84. Pubmed.
Schwartz H. Abraham Lincoln and cardiac decompensation: a preliminary report. West J Med. 1978:128(2):174-177. Pubmed.
Seldes, George. Witness to a Century. New York: Ballantine, 1987. ISBN 0-345-33181-8 @ Amazon [a] p. 245
In 1927 Katherine Medill McCormick recalled to a group of people that her mother used to say this -- and several other disparaging things about the President -- before sending her to play with the Lincoln children. McCormick's father, Joseph Medill, was a friend of Lincoln's. Lincoln was not alone in being an object of Mrs. Medill's scorn. Seldes makes it clear that she hated just about everyone and everything.
Shenk, Joshua Wolf. Lincoln's Melancholy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. ISBN 0618551166 @ Amazon
Shutes, Milton H. Lincoln and the Doctors: A Medical Narrative of the Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Pioneer Press, 1933. [a] pp. 7-8
Sotos, John G. The Physical Lincoln: Finding the Genetic Cause of Abraham Lincoln's Height, Homeliness, Pseudo-Depression, and Imminent Cancer Death. Mt. Vernon, VA: Mt. Vernon Book Systems, 2008. [a] pp. 223-227 [b] pp. 44-81 [c] p. 44 [d] p. 45-48 [e] pp. 52-63 [f] pp. 84-115 [g] pp. 117-121 [h] pp. 77-80 [i] pp. 206-233 [j] pp. 87-89 [k] pp. 80-81 [l] pp. 194-205 [m] p. 167 [n] pp. 164-173 [o] pp. 252-257 [p] pp. 67-68 [q] p. 138-139 [r] pp. 158-163 [s] p. 102 [t] p. 102-103 [u] p. 157
More information at: http://www.physical-lincoln.com/
Sotos, John G. The Physical Lincoln Sourcebook. Mt. Vernon, VA: Mt. Vernon Book Systems, 2008. [a] pp. 66-67 [b] pp. 190-191, 313 [c] p. 118 [d] p. 71 [e] pp. 118, 313-315 [f] p. 26 (¶73) [g] pp. 195-198 [h] pp. 335-351 [i] p. 340
More information at: http://www.physical-lincoln.com/
Tarbell, Ida. Abraham Lincoln and His Ancestors. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1997.
Originally published 1924 as In the Footsteps of the Lincolns.
The Abraham Lincoln web page at the White House.
(64 matches when checked in November 2003)

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