Sunday, October 02, 2011

Wilson's Stroke

On this day in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke, apparently not his first, but decidedly debilitating. Eyewitness to History describes the event:



"On the morning of October 2, Mrs. Wilson found her husband unconscious on the bathroom floor of their private White House quarters, bleeding from a cut on his head. Wilson had suffered a stroke -- a massive attack that left his left side paralyzed and impaired his vision. She immediately summoned Dr. [Cary] Grayson. Then the conspiracy began. The two of them formed a bulwark between the invalid President and the rest of the country, simultaneously shielding Wilson from intrusion and hiding his condition from outsiders."


Dr. Zebra notes that, "Wilson's first stroke was in May 1896. It caused marked weakness of the right upper limb plus sensory disturbances in the fingers. The finger problems were mis-diagnosed as neuritis. Wilson was unable to write normally for almost a year afterwards."


He also says that: "A photograph of Wilson on the day of his 1913 inauguration shows astonishingly bad teeth. This is relevant to Wilson's later stroke(s) because poor dentition has been suspected to increase the risk of atherosclerotic disease."

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