Doctor Zebra > Presidential health > List of Presidents > Grover Cleveland > More Back to Grover Cleveland
 
    The Health and Medical History of President
   

Grover Cleveland: Gout

   
 

Musculoskeleton
gout
He developed gout as early as 1885, when he was seen limping on his right foot at the funeral of Ulysses Grant [3b]. Cleveland's gout plagued him the rest of his life. abetted, no doubt, by his beer intake. During his third campaign for the Presidency, in 1892, gout enabled him to make only a few public appearances [3b].

More...

As an indication of the torment gout produces, and Cleveland's sense of humor, consider the letter he wrote to a close friend in 1907, at age 70 [10b]:
If you are at all curious to know how important a member of your body the right thumb is, I advise you to locate a little gout or something of that kind in its first joint. My experience within the last two weeks has convinced me that the deprivation of many things connected with my bodily outfit could be borne with more equanimity than the disablement of the end piece of my right hand. I am delighted to see how well I am writing this morning, notwithstanding bandages and liniments; and I am not allowing myself to be disturbed by apprehensions of retaliatory twinges that may follow my unwonted thumbly exertion.

     Resources[Top]
Disclosure: Doctor Zebra gets a few pennies if you click & buy from Amazon.
  1. Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-502915-1 @ Amazon   [a] p. 178

  2. Brodsky, Alyn. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character. NY: St. Martin's Press, 2000. ISBN 0-312-26883-1 @ Amazon   [a] p. 315 [b] p. 310 [c] p. 4 [d] p. 312

  3. 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. 136 [b] p. 137 [c] pp. 136-137 [d] p. 140
        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.

  4. Dugan, James. Bedlam in the boudoir. Colliers. 22 Feb. 1947; pages 17, 69-70.
        Credibility is dubious. Just before a list of Presidents, the article states: "Twenty of the 32 Presidents ... are proved or believed on a thick web of circumstance to have been nocturnal nuisances in the White House."

  5. Howe. M. A. DeWolfe. George von Lengerke Meyer: His Life and Public Services. NY: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1920.
        Meyer was Postmaster General under Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy under William Howard Taft.

  6. Keen, William Williams. The Surgical Operations on President Cleveland in 1893. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1917.
        The corresponding magazine article was published in the Sept. 22, 1917 Saturday Evening Post on pages 24-55.

  7. McElroy, Robert. Grover Cleveland: The Man and the Statesman. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923.

  8. 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
        Enumerates the ancestors and descendants of American presidents up through Ronald Reagan.

  9. Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1933.   [a] pp. 162-169
        Won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.

  10. Nevins, Allan (ed.). The Letters of Grover Cleveland: 1850-1908. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1933.   [a] p. 1 [b] p. 615

  11. 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::

  12. Pringle, Henry F. The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1939.   [a] p. 1072

  13. Stoddard, Henry L. It Costs to Be President. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938.   [a] p. 215
        Stoddard was editor and owner of the New York Evening Mail from 1900 to 1925.

  14. The Grover Cleveland web page at the White House.

  15.  (22 matches when checked in November 2003)
  [Top]

<== Chester ArthurReturn to Grover ClevelandBenjamin Harrison ==>

George Washington · John Adams · Thomas Jefferson · James Madison · James Monroe · John Q. Adams · Andrew Jackson · Martin van Buren · William Harrison · John Tyler · James Polk · Zachary Taylor · Millard Fillmore · Franklin Pierce · James Buchanan · Abraham Lincoln · Andrew Johnson · Ulysses Grant · Rutherford Hayes · James Garfield · Chester Arthur · Grover Cleveland · Benjamin Harrison · William McKinley · Theodore Roosevelt · William Taft · Woodrow Wilson · Warren Harding · Calvin Coolidge · Herbert Hoover · Franklin Roosevelt · Harry Truman · Dwight Eisenhower · John Kennedy · Lyndon Johnson · Richard Nixon · Gerald Ford · James Carter · Ronald Reagan · George Bush · William Clinton · George W. Bush · [Cheney]

Dr Zebra | Prez Home | Search | Contact us | Back | Top

Copyright (c) 2000-2008 by DoctorZebra.com. All Rights Reserved. This page last modified January 1, 2003.