The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama

by Deppisch, Ludwig M. , M. D.

  12. Leahy, 329.

  13. Coleman, 73; Chitwood, Oliver Perry: John Tyler: Champion of the Old South (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), 199; Gould, 68: remained in her bedroom.

  14. Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 180, 91.

  15. Vivek Dhawan, et al.: “Long-Term Effects of Repeated Pregnancies (Multiparity) on Blood Pressure Regulation.” Cardiovascular Research 64 (2004), 179–186.

  16. Gould, 68.

  17. Gould, 68; Anthony, 122; Coleman, 83; Robert II Seager, And Tyler Too: A Biography of John and Julia Gardiner Tyler (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 172–3.

  18. Coleman, 86–7.

  19. Ibid., 87–8.

  20. Ibid., 89.

  21. Hart, 224–5.

  22. Coleman, 99; Dan Monroe, The Republican Vision of John Tyler (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003), 136.

  23. Holloway, 385–6.

  24. Washington Intelligencer, September 12–13, 1842; Washington Globe, September 12, 1842; Holloway, 395.

  25. Edward Crapol, John Tyler: The Accidental President (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 268: a comprehensive review of Tyler’s difficult presidency.

  26. Virginia Miller, “Dr. Thomas Miller and His Times,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 3 (1900): 303–323.

  27. History of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, 25, 229, 433.

  28. Samuel Busey, Personal Reminiscences and Recollections of Forty-Six Years’ Membership in the Medical Society of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C., 1895), 24.

  29. Busey, 205; American Mercury (December 21, 1821) details Sewall’s appointment; New Hampshire Gazette (March 10, 1834) contains a letter to the editor supporting Beaumont’s experiments; Baltimore Sun (November 6, 1839): The operation was performed at the Washington alms house by Dr. Thomas Miller, who was assisted by Drs. Sewall, Hall and May.

  30. Madisonian, May 4, 1841; Baltimore Sun, May 13, 1844; History of the DC Medical Society, 222, lists many of his civic and professional accomplishments.

  31. Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 14–5.

  32. History of the DC Medical Society, 148.

  33. Roach, 43.

  34. ”Mind Games: A Look at Phrenology in the 1830s,” Skeptic Report, http:/www.skepticreport.com/sr/?p=558 (accessed December 15, 2011); van Wyhe, John: “The History of Phrenology on the Web,” http://www.historyof phrenology.org.uk/overview.htm (accessed December 15, 2011).

  35. Thomas Sewall, Examination of Phrenology (Washington City: Honans, 1837); History of the DC Medical Society, 148; Catharine Anthony, Dolly Madison: Her Life and Times (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949), 336: loan of a book to the widow Madison.

  36. New Hampshire Sentinel, December 29, 1841.

  37. Amherst (NH) Farmer’s Cabinet 39, no. 33 (April 9, 1841): 2.

  38. Connecticut Courant, February 7, 1835; Washington National Intelligencer, February 9, 1835; Washington Globe, February 4, 1835.

  39. John R. Bumgarner, The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician’s Point of View (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994), 81.

  40. William Boyd Mushet, A Practical Treatise on Apoplexy (Cerebral Hemorrhage), Its Pathology, Diagnosis, Therapeutics, and Prophylaxis, with an Essay on So-Called Nervous Apoplexy, on Congestion of the Brain and Serous Effusion (London: John Churchill and Sons, 1866), 156; George B. Taylor, “The Inaugural Essay on Apoplexia of Apoplexy,” submitted to the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for the degree of doctor of medicine; Marshall Hall, “The Threatenings of Apoplexy and Paralysis, etc.,” the Cronian Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, March 1851, pp. 1–90.

  41. Mushet, 106; Taylor.

  42. J.D.B. De Bow, Mortality Statistics: Life Expectancy by Age, 1850–2004.

  43. Coleman, 99; Monroe, 136.

  Chapter 4

  1. William Degregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (New York: Wings, 1993), 75.

  2. Elizabeth Monroe, First Ladies Biography, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=5 (accessed October 23, 2013); Degregorio, 75; Robert P. Watson, The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of the First Lady (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 36.

  3. Degregorio, 75; George Morgan, The Life of James Monroe (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1921), 416; Harlow G. Unger, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo, 2009), 298.

  4. Carl Sferrazza Anthony, First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents’ Wives and Their Power, 1789–1961, vols. 1 and 2 (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 613n1: absences, 103: “first Queen Elizabeth”; W.P. Cresson, James Monroe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 92: the hauteur of a grande dame.

  5. Lewis L. Gould, American First Ladies: Their Lives and Legacy, 2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 2001), 40; Monroe, Biography, National First Ladies’ Library for Louisa Adams’s quote.

  6. Cresson, 368, improved acceptance amongst social opinion makers; Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1990) (401) and Unger (324) describe Mrs. Monroe’s charm and beauty; Ammon, 542, for Lafayette banquet.

  7. Ammon, 64.

  8. James Monroe, The Autobiography of James Monroe, ed. Stuart Gerry Brown (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1959), 70–1.

  9. Ammon, 546; Monroe, First Ladies’ Biography, records Elizabeth Monroe’s post inauguration White House stay.

  10. Unger, 65, 142; Craig Hart, A Genealogy of the Wives of American Presidents and Their First Two Generations of Descent (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), 161, for the Monroe children’s birthdates.

  11. James Monroe, The Papers of James Monroe, 1776–1794, ed. Daniel Preston (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003).

  12. Monroe, Biography, First Ladies’; Unger, 153.

  13. “Rheumatoid Arthritis: Comparing Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis,” http://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/tc/comparing-rheumatoid-arthritis-and-osteoarthritis-topic-overview (accessed October 24, 2013); Pouya Entezami, et al.: “Historical Perspective on the Etiology of Rheumatoid Arthritis,” Hand Clinics 27, no. 1 (2011 February): 1–10.

  14. Monroe, Biography, First Ladies’; Cresson, 205; George Morgan, The Life of James Monroe (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1921), 279.

  15. Unger, 186–7.

  16. James Monroe to Madison, January 10, 1806, James Monroe Writings IV, 391–398; Unger, 186–7.

  17. James Monroe to Charles Everett, 13 January 1810; James Monroe to Elizabeth Trist, March 6, 1810.

  18. Unger, 219: Mrs. Monroe, as the wife of the secretary of state; Ammon, 290: editor’s description of Elizabeth; James E. Wootton, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, pamphlet (Charlottesville VA: Ash Lawn-Highland, 1987).

  19. Unger, 279, 323.

  20. Gould, 42; Monroe, Biography, First Ladies’; Noble E. Cunningham, Jr.: The Presidency of James Monroe (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996), 134.

  21. Cunningham, 179.

  22. Gould, 41; Biography, First Ladies’; Anthony, 102; Unger, 329; Anne Adams, Elizabeth Monroe: Elegance in the White House; History’s Women, http://www.historyswomen.com/1stWomen/elizabethmonroe.html (accessed November 3, 2012).

  23. James Monroe (Washington) to Charles Everett, September 1, 1824.

  24. James Monroe to Samuel Gourveneur, December 29, 1826.

  25. Anthony, 102–3.

  26. Gould 41; Biography, First Ladies’; Unger, 329.

  27. Anne Adams.

  28. Nancy R. Miller, University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center, e-mail February 4, 2005.

  29. James Monroe (Albemarle County, Virginia) to Charles Everett (Albemarle County, Virginia), July 1, 1820, Tyler’s Historical Quarterly 5, no. 18 (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1967); James Monroe (Albemarle Cou
nty, Virginia) to Charles Everett (Albemarle County, Virginia) July 9, 1820, The Papers of James Monroe; Wootton.

  30. James Monroe (Washington) to Dr. Charles Everett (Richmond, Virginia), December 2, 1822, Tyler’s Historical Quarterly 5, no. 18 (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1967).

  31. Cunningham, 124.

  32. James Monroe (Washington) to Charles Everett (Albemarle County, Virginia), November 13, 1823, Tyler’s Historical Quarterly 5, no. 21 (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1967).

  33. Bilious fever, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~memigrat/diseases.html (accessed October 27, 2013).

  34. James Monroe (Oak Hill, Virginia) to Samuel Gouverneur (New York City), February 24, 1826; James Monroe (Oak Hill, Virginia) to James Madison (Montpelier, Virginia), March 20, 1829.

  35. James Monroe (Oak Hill, Virginia) to Samuel Gouverneur (New York, NY), September 23, 1930 (James Monroe Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library); Hart, 161.

  36. Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 535.

  37. Anna Harrison, Biography, National First Ladies’ Library, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=9 (accessed October 27, 2013); Anthony, 120: Anna Harrison’s quote.

  38. Harrison, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  39. Ibid.; Hart, 114.

  40. K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 258.

  41. John B. Roberts, II: Rating the First Ladies (New York: Citadel, 2003), xxiii-xxiv.

  42. Bauer, 8, summarized the Taylors’ married life; Anthony, 145–6: Margaret Taylor’s reluctance to be America’s first lady.

  43. Anthony, 145–6; Bauer, 258.

  44. Anthony, 145: “The Phantom in the White House”; Margaret Taylor, Biography, First Ladies’ Library, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography+13 (accessed November 12, 2012); Anthony, 145–6.

  45. Anthony, 145–6; Bauer, 258; Taylor, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  46. Taylor, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  47. Ibid., Chapter Two.

  48. Hart, 214–5; John S.D. Eisenhower, Zachary Taylor (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 19: “health permanently impaired”; Bauer, 38; Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor: Soldier of the Republic (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941), 68–9.

  49. Roberts, 80; Degregorio, 176.

  50. Bauer, 48, 55, 229.

  51. Samuel W. Francis, “Biographical Sketch of General R.C. Wood,” Medical and Surgical Reporter 20 (April 10, 1869): 275–6; Robert C. Wood, Robert C. Wood’s Medical Officer’s files, National Archives and Records Administration.

  52. Taylor, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  53. Robert J. Scarry, Millard Fillmore (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 127.

  54. Abigail Fillmore, Biography, National First Ladies’ Library, http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=14 (accessed October 29, 2013); Degregorio, 192.

  55. Watson, 78: quote “Abigail is typical of those”; Fillmore, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; Gould, 102–3.

  56. Watson, 78; Gould, 102–3.

  57. Scarry, 15; Anthony, 152; Gould, 102–3; Degregorio, 188, for information on Abbie’ talents.

  58. Anthony, 152.

  59. Roberts, 82: “What Ms. Fillmore Most Enjoyed,” 86: congressional appropriation; Fillmore, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; Anthony, 152, 155, for famous authors.

  60. Anthony, 153–5, for her influence on President Fillmore; Roberts, 86–7: Abigail Fillmore’s opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, which mandated that escaped slaves be returned to their southern masters even if apprehended in a state that had outlawed slavery.

  61. Fillmore, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; Anthony, 151.

  62. Fillmore, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  63. Ibid.; Gould, 102–3.

  64. Scarry, 88–9, 125–7, for Abigail’s therapy; Gould, 102–3:Saratoga Springs, New York; Scarry, 126–7 for 1845 letter from Abigail Fillmore to sympathetic correspondent C.F. Perkins.

  65. Scarry, 125–7.

  66. Ibid.

  67. Ibid. for January 1849 letter; Gould, 102–3: Abigail in bed for days; Roberts, 85, concluded that the injured ankle produced the back and hip pain.

  68. Gould, 102–3.

  69. Millard Fillmore (Buffalo, New York) to Julia, his sister, April 12, 1953 (Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society); Anthony, 155, and Gould, 105, both commented on her illness during the previous winter.

  70. Anthony, 105: Mrs. Fillmore was the first first lady to attend her husband’s successor’s inauguration; Roy Franklin Nichols, Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills (Norwalk, CT: Easton, 1931), 234: quote about the weather on inauguration day, 1853.

  71. Nichols, for the death of William Henry Harrison.

  72. Fillmore, Biography, First Ladies’ Library.

  73. Millard Fillmore (Buffalo, New York) to Julia, his sister, April 12, 1953 (Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society).

  74. Anthony, 155.

  75. Ibid.

  76. New York Daily Times, March 23, 1853.

  77. Millard Fillmore (Washington, D.C.) to Franklin Pierce (Washington, D.C.), March 28, 1853 (Special Collections, Penfield Library, SUNY-Oswego).

  78. Millard Fillmore: note “Funeral Expenses of Mrs. F at Washington,” April 17, 1853 (Special Collections, Penfield Library, SUNY-Oswego).

  Chapter 5

  1. Alyn Brodsky, Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician (New York: St. Martin’s, 2004), 336; David Barton, Benjamin Rush (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder, 1999), 263.

  2. Norman F. Boas, Jane M. Pierce (1806–1863); Pierce-Aiken Papers (Seaport-Aiken Autographs, 1983): “Mrs. Pierce found Benny”; Michael Minor and Larry F. Vrzalik, “A Study in Tragedy: Jane Means Pierce, First Lady,” Manuscripts 40 no. 3 (Summer 1988): 177–89: “It destroyed her forever.”

  3. Jane Walter Venzke and Craig Paul Venzke, The President’s Wife: Jane Means Appleton Pierce, a Woman of Her Time, http://www.nhhistory.org/publications/Revealing_Relationships_Pressidents_wife.pdf (accessed February 27, 2011).

  4. Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr.: “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,” New England Quarterly 28, no. 3 (September 1955), 339–348; Deborah Kent, Jane Means Appleton Pierce (New York: Children’s, 1998), 47–9.

  5. Minor.

  6. Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=15 (accessed February 14, 2011).

  7. Robert P. Watson, The Presidents’ Wives: Reassessing the Office of the First Lady (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), 59, 64–5; Roy Franklin Nichols, Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills (Norwalk, CT: Easton, 1931), 230–1.

  8. Nichols, 242: She did not appear at table when company was present. She did socialize with friends and accompanied Nathaniel Hawthorne to Mount Vernon. Nichols, 313–4: In February 1854, Mrs. Pierce’s customary ill health and melancholy prevented her from giving any attention to society, much less playing the leading part befitting her as mistress of the White House. Accompanied by Daniel Webster and other friends, but never by Mrs. Pierce, the president regularly attended concerts in Washington; Nichols, 360: In August 1854, Mr. and Mrs. Pierce escaped Washington’s heat by sailing down the Potomac with a party. Later they spent a week at Capon Springs, Virginia.

  9. American President, Reference Resource, Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/events/12_06 (accessed October 19, 2011); Joel Martin and William J. Birnes: The Haunting of the Presidents: A Paranormal History of the U.S. Presidency (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky and Konecky, 2003), 213; “The Fox Sisters: Spiritualism’s Unlikely Founders,” http://www.histroynet.com/the-fox-sisters-spiritualisms-unlikely-founders.htm. Maggie and Katy Fox were charlatans but had a remarkable career for decades as they duped countless people into “communication” with their beloved deceased.

  1
0. Jane Pierce to (deceased son) Bennie, January 23, 1853 (New Hampshire Historical Society manuscript, Franklin Pierce papers, accession number 1929–001).

  11. Nichols, 375, 421, 439.

  12. Venzke; Nichols, 76: described as “tubercular.”

  13. Nichols, 94; Venzke.

  14. Nichols, 103–4: “Sewall did his best”; Nichols, chapter three, for Sewall’s other patients; Venzke: diagnosis of tuberculosis.

  15. Venzke, for Jane Pierce’s use of leeches; “Leech,” Wikipedia, http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech (accessed 27 February 2012), for contemporary leech therapy.

  16. Nichols, 507–8.

  17. Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library, for the diagnosis of tuberculosis; Minor for the Pierces’ wanderings in search of a cure; Deborah Kent, Jane Means Appleton Pierce (New York: Children’s, 1998), 78–86: “All during her travels”; Craig Hart, A Genealogy of the Wives of American Presidents and Their First Two Generations of Descent (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), 165, for the date and location of her death.

  18. Hart, 165; Kent: 14,16; Venzke.

  19. Jane Pierce, Biography, First Ladies’ Library; Jonathan R.T. Davidson and Kathryn M. Connor, “The Impairment of Presidents Pierce and Coolidge After Traumatic Bereavement,” Comprehensive Psychiatry 49 (2008), 413–419.

  20. Minor: “Disaster almost from the start. The couple was completely mismatched—she, a shy reclusive sickly introvert”; Nichols, 76: “Her husband presented quite a contrast.”

  21. Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr.: “A Wife for Mr. Pierce,” New England Quarterly 28, no. 3 (September 1955), 339–348.

  22. Minor; Taylor; Nichols, 140.