Dwight Eisenhower: Cardiovascular History, 1968

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	The Health and Medical History of President
	Dwight Eisenhower: Cardiovascular History, 1968

4 infarcts, 14 arrests

From April through August 1968, Eisenhower had 4 heart attacks and 14 cardiac arrests.

One of the most remarkable and fortunate things about all this is that although he was unconscious a number of times his intellectual functions, memory, and recall and interest in current events were not compromised. His energy reserve was low, however, so his activity was restricted to three periods of 45 minutes out of bed each day. His morale and spirits were magnificent considering all he had been through. [5]

(Between his first infarction in 1955 and the April 1968 infarct, he had suffered two additional infarcts. Thus, the August 1968 event was his seventh myocardial infarction.)

More...

Here, from reference [5], is a compilation of the cardiovascular events that Eisenhower sustained in 1968:

Date (1968) Event

April 29 Infarct #4

May 14 Infarct #5, "probably of greater magnitude" than #4

Summer Infarct #6

August 16 Infarct #7 (maybe). Little evidence of myocardial damage. This was an episode of ventricular fibrillation followed by successful DC cardioversion. He had been monitored continuously on an EKG oscilloscope, with a specially qualified medical officer in attendance around the clock.

August 16-24 14 episodes of ventricular fibrillation and electrical cardioversion. (3 episodes on August 17 alone.) "Efforts were made to prevent these episodes through the use of recognized drugs and one or two experimental drugs."

Resources

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Ambrose, Stephen E. Eisenhower: Volume One: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect: 1890-1952. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. ISBN 0-671-44069-1 @ Amazon [a] p. 488
Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-502915-1 @ Amazon [a] p. 298
Ginzberg, E. Ten encounters with the US health sector, 1930-1999. JAMA. 1999;282:1665-1668. Pubmed.
Heaton, LD; Ravdin, IS; Blades, B; Whelan, TJ. President Eisenhower's operation for regional enteritis: a footnote to history. Annals of Surgery. 1964;159:661-666. [a] p. 664
Hughes, CW; Baugh, JH; Mologne, LA; Heaton, LD. A review of the late General Eisenhower's operations: epilog to a footnote to history. Annals of Surgery. 1971;173:793-799. Pubmed.
Hughes mentions plans to incorporate the General's medical history into book form for the National Archives.
Kucharski, A. Medical management of political patients: the case of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 1978;22:115-126. Pubmed. [a] p. 123 [b] p. 116 [c] p. 117 [d] p. 119 [e] p. 120 [f] p. 118 [g] p. 123-124
Lasby, Clarence G. Eisenhower's Heart Attack: How Ike Beat Heart Disease and Held onto the Presidency. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997. ISBN 0-7006-0822-2 @ Amazon
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.
Pillsbury, DM. General Eisenhower's "melanoma". Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 1981;4:631-632. Pubmed.
Also in: Nero, F. Conversations with the President. Buffalo, NY: Westwood Pharmaceuticals, 1978, volume 1, pp. 13-14.
The Dwight Eisenhower web page at the White House.
(16 matches when checked in November 2003)

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