The Health of the First Ladies: Medical Histories from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama (48 page)

42.
Saunders, 270–1; Dubovoy, 254, speculated that the surgery was for a gynecological problem; Edward P. Davis (Philadelphia) to Dr. Cary T. Grayson (The White House), May 16, 1914: Davis informed Grayson that Dr. Widdowson, the anesthesiologist, had sent his bill to Mrs. Wilson, who took care of the Wilson family accounts. Davis wished Grayson to explain the reason for this bill to Mrs. Wilson. Widdowson was “an expert in anesthesia, and … he took considerable time to come to Washington to do what he did.”

43.
Saunders, 270–1: “distressingly ill”; Dubovoy, 254; Davis to Grayson letter, April 7, 1914.

44.
Saunders, 270–1; Dubovoy, 255; Weinstein, 256.

45.
Dubovoy, 255; McAdoo:
The Priceless Gift
, 315.

46.
Weinstein, 253–4.

47.
Harvey, A. McGehee, “Medical Students on the March: Brown, MacCallum and Opie,”
Johns Hopkins Medical Journal
134 (June 1974), 330–4.

48.
Saunders, 273–6.

49.
“Mrs. Wilson Dies in the White House,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 7, 1914; “Mrs. Wilson Dies in White House,”
New York Times
, August 7, 1914; Kristie Miller,
Ellen and Edith: Woodrow Wilson’s First Ladies
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 89–90; Dubovoy, 258; Certificate of Death, District of Columbia, for Ellen Axson Wilson, August 6, 1914, reproduction issued August 8, 1969, and certified by John H. Crandall, chief of Vital Records Division.

50.
McAdoo,
The Priceless Gift
, 315; Ray Stannard Baker, interviews with Cary T. Grayson, February 18–19, 1926, RSB Collection; Weinstein, 99, 254–5; Albert S. Lyons and R. Joseph Petrucelli II,
Medicine: An Illustrated History
(New York: Harry C. Abrams, 1987), 516: Bright’s disease is named after the Edinburgh and Guy’s Hospital 19th-century physician Richard Bright, who studied diseases of the kidney and may have been the first recognized nephrologist.

51.
Dubovoy, 257; Woodrow Wilson to J.R. Wilson, August 6, 1914.

52.
Dubovoy, 258.

53.
Grayson, 232–5.

54.
Weinstein, 256; Saunders, 273–6: “now in its late stages, yet could not bring himself to tell the president that her condition was helpless.”

55.
Cary Grayson letter to Col. House, August 20, 1914 (House papers).

56.
Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert, June 21, 1914: “but that fear, thank God, is past and she is coming along slowly, but surely”; Woodrow Wilson to Alfred P. Wilson, July 23, 1914: “Ellen is making good progress, though painfully slow”; Woodrow Wilson to E.P. Davis, July 26, 1914: “at present to be making little progress, and yet it still seems certain that there is nothing wrong with her.”

57.
New York Times
, August 7, 1914,

58.
Weinstein, 258–9; Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt,
Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966), 156.

59.
Freud, 155; Weinstein, 258–9: Wilson’s depression.

60.
Grayson, 35–6; Miller,
Ellen and Edith
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 97: confession to Colonel House.

61.
Edmund: Morris,
Colonel Roosevelt
(New York: Random House, 2010), 384, 398.

62.
Grayson, 48; Freud and Bullitt, 214: “a nervous collapse.”

63.
Miller, 99, 108; Grayson, 50–1.

64.
Edith Bolling Wilson,
My Memoir
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1938, 1939), 127.

65.
Miller,
Ellen and Edith
, 129–130: Wilson’s marriage to Edith; 108–110: whirlwind courtship; 11,34, 97: dependency and need for women; Freud and Bullitt, 157–8.

66.
Miller, 118: Even when engaged, Wilson passed along to Edith all sorts of confidential information and papers; Miller, 128: reviewed speeches and saw diplomatic communiqués before wedding; Miller, 114: Edith encouraged Wilson to accept Bryan’s resignation as secretary of state.

67.
Miller, 99: “She personally made high-level governmental decisions, guessing at what Wilson would have wanted. Sometimes she refused to make necessary decisions and prevented others from making them. She did not hesitate to push out longtime Wilson advisers and appointees. Unquestionably she lied”; Miller, 171: Edith with Woodrow Wilson in Europe for Treaty negotiations; Wilson, 151: coded and decoded messages from House in Europe; Anthony,
First Ladies
, 352–3, 356, 359, 371, 376, 379.

68.
Miller, 178–215, Anthony, 371–380, and Weinstein, 348–366: narratives of Edith’s role during Wilson’s disability; Miller, 186: “Edith made a crucially important decision.”

69.
James S. McCallops,
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson: The Unintended President
(New York: Nova History, 2003).

70.
Roberts,
Rating the First Ladies
, 205–6.

71.
Miller, 152: September 22, 1917–She was seriously ill with a respiratory infection and took to her room for two weeks. Wilson postponed an important meeting with Colonel House; Wilson, 144: In summer, 1917, Edith awoke with high fever, aching all over. Grayson was away and Ruffin was sent for and he pronounced the ailment grippe. Since Grayson was gone for a month, Altrude, Edith’s close companion and Grayson’s wife, stayed at the White House: “I was in my room more than two weeks.”

72.
Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary
, 23rd ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1957); McCallops, 42: alleged that Edith Wilson contracted an early case of the pandemic influenza; John M. Barry,
The Great Influenza
(New York: Penguin, 2004), 93, 96: references to Kansas locations, 383–8: Woodrow Wilson’s bout with the flu in Paris.

73.
Miller, 174; Wilson, 260.

74.
New York Times
, January 31, 1924: “well known as a diagnostician”; Anthony, 119–120: “one of the city’s better physicians”; Obituary of Sterling Ruffin,
Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association:
“a man of distinguished appearance, of great dignity of manner, and of outstanding ability.”

75.
Miller, 239; Wilson, 288, 291, 359; Anthony, 119–120, for Dr. Ruffin’s treatment of Florence Harding.

76.
Miller, 239: Ruffin an “old friend”; Wilson, 85: documented his attendance at the Galt-Wilson wedding;
New York Times
, October 2, 1925: related the romantic rumors between the widow Edith and Dr. Ruffin.

77.
Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace and Museum: “The Genealogy of Edith Bolling Wilson,” http://edithbollingwilson.org/the-genealogy-of-edith-bolling-wilson/ (March 4, 2013); Anthony, 356, for campaign discussion of Indian heritage.

78.
Miller, 103–5.

79.
Miller, 104–6; Wilson, 29, 51–3, 100.

80.
Wilson, 51: Grayson “a long and valued acquaintance of mine”; Miller, 117: “my dear boy” and successful lobbying for Grayson’s promotion.

81.
Miller, 135; Watson, 140.

82.
Miller, 238; Wilson, 351, 358.

83.
Miller, 261.

84.
Ibid., 242.

85.
Ibid., 257, 260–1.

1.
Carl Sferrazza Anthony,
Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America’s Most Scandalous President
(New York: William Morrow, 1998), xiv.

2.
Cynthia Bittinger,
Grace Coolidge: Sudden Star
(New York: Nova History, 2005), 87–8.

3.
Ludwig M. Deppisch, “Homeopathic Medicine and Presidential Health,”
PHAROS
60, no. 4 (Fall 1997), 5–10.

4.
Ibid.; Chapter Ten, for Van Valzah.

5.
Deppisch,
The White House Physician
, 78.

6.
Deppisch, “Homeopathic Medicine.”

7.
Ibid.

8.
Anthony, 64, 516–18, 522.

9.
Ibid., 55.

10.
John J. Bell, “Nephroptosis: Its Causation, Symptoms and Radical Cure,”
British Medical Journal
(May 26, 1923): 889–892; Douglas L. McWhinnie and David N.H. Hamilton: “The Rise and Fall of Surgery for the ‘Floating’ Kidney,”
British Medical Journal
288 (March 17, 1984): 845–7.

11.
Anthony, 79–80.

12.
“Mrs. Harding Worse; Recovery Not Sure; Specialists Called,”
New York Times
, September 8, 1922; George Paulson,
James Fairchild Baldwin, MD (1850–1930
):
An Extraordinary Surgeon
,
House Call, Medical Heritage Center, at Ohio State University
9 no. 1 (Fall 1905), 1–2.

13.
Anthony, 86.

14.
Ibid., 103.

15.
Stuart J. Koblentz, “The Sawyers in Marion,” 59–72, in
Marion
(Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004), for White Oaks description; Anthony, 102: “rigorous outdoor exercise, light therapy, hydrotherapy, massage and electrotherapy.”

16.
Anthony, 103; Carl Sawyer,
Polk’s Medical Registry and Directory
, 1917; Sawyer, Carl, Obituary,
Journal of the American Medical Association
196, no. 3 (June 27, 1966): 154.

17.
Anthony, 107; Francis Russell,
The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 237.

18.
Anthony, 115; “Mrs. Harding Worse; Recovery Not Sure; Specialists Called,”
New York Times
, September 8, 1922.

19.
Anthony, 119–121.

20.
Ibid., 154; Russell, 310; Bernard Lauriston Hardin, Obituary,
Journal of the American Medical Association
107, no. 2 (July 11, 1936), 145; B.L. Hardin to Florence Harding, December 11, 1922; B.L. Hardin to Florence Harding, undated.

21.
Deppisch:
The White House Physician
, 83.

22.
Anthony, 375–383; Russell, 549–550.

23.
New York Times
, September 7, 1922: “an ailment neither alarming nor serious”; Milton F. Heller, Jr.:
The Presidents’ Doctor: An Insider’s View of Three First Families
(New York: Vantage, 2000), 39–43: Boone summoned; Russell, 549: “I am afraid that Florence is going.”

24.
John Milton Cooper, Jr.:
Woodrow Wilson. A Biography
(New York: Random House, 2009), 535–540.

25.
Anthony, 376–7.

26.
J.M.T. Finney:
A Surgeon’s Life: The Autobiography of J.M.T. Finney
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940), 264–7.

27.
Ibid.

28.
Florence Harding to Evalyn McLean, February 5, 1923; Harry Daugherty to Florence Harding, February 16, 1923.

29.
Charles H. Mayo, Obituary,
British Medical Journal
159–160 (June 3, 1939).

30.
John Miller Turpin Finney, Obituary,
Annals of Surgery
119, no. 4 (April 1944): 616–621.

31.
Finney, 264–7.

32.
Robert H. Ferrell,
The Strange Deaths of President Harding
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996).

33.
“Mrs. Harding Back in Washington,”
New York Times
, January 3, 1924.

34.
Anthony, 516–518.

35.
Ibid., 522.

36.
Ibid., 524–5; “Harding’s Widow Is Seriously Ill,”
New York Times
, November 3, 1924.

37.
Burke A. Hinsdale and Isaac Newton Demmon,
History of the University of Michigan
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1906), 272: biography of Dr. James Craven Wood; “Perform Operation on Mrs. Harding,”
New York Times
, November 8, 1924; “Mrs. Harding Dies After Long Fight,”
New York Times
, November 22, 1924; Anthony, 524–5.

38.
Milton F. Heller, Jr.:
The Presidents’ Doctor: An Insider’s View of Three First Families
(New York: Vantage, 2000), 5–7; Charles A. Roos, “Physicians to the Presidents, and Their Patients: A Bibliography,”
Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
49 (1961).

39.
Cynthia Bittinger,
Grace Coolidge: Sudden Star
(New York: Nova History, 2005), 8; Grace Coolidge,
Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography
, ed. Lawrence Wilander and Robert Ferrell (Worland, WY: High Plains, 1992), ix, 79, 111.

40.
Coolidge,
Grace Coolidge
, ix; Bittinger, 5, 8; Ishbel Ross,
Grace Coolidge and Her Era
(Plymouth, VT: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1988), 4.

41.
Bittinger, 8: “She needed to improve her health”; Ross, 4: “Grace definitely liked long walks.”

42.
Coolidge
Grace Coolidge
, x.

43.
Ibid., 32.

44.
Ross, 11–12: “They made an uncommon pair”; Robert E. Gilbert,
The Tormented President: Calvin Coolidge, Death and Clinical Depression
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 13: “shy disposition, somber demeanor, and conscientious devotion to duty.”

45.
Bittinger, 51.

46.
Robert H. Ferrell,
Grace Coolidge: The People’s Lady in Silent Cal’s White House
(Lawrence: Vantage, 2008), 6: eye for style, 72: great charm, poise and grace; Bittinger, 73: her personality was her strongest point.

47.
Bittinger, 93.

48.
Ross, 102.

49.
Joel Boone, Boone Diary, Library of Congress, Boone Collection, Box 40.

50.
Ibid.

51.
Ibid.

52.
Ibid.; Heller, 112–3.

53.
Ross, 238.

54.
Boone, Boone Diary; Heller, 112–3.

55.
Boone, Boone Diary: Coolidge’s evaluation of Coupal’s professional ability; Heller, 124: Boone’s assessment of Coupal’s medical ability.

56.
J. Morton Boice, “Benzyl Benzoate,”
New York Medical Journal
(December 13, 1919): 977–982; Boone, Boone Diary: his opinion of Coupal’s therapy, Dr. Young’s approval.