Abraham Lincoln is a deified figure in American history. History has portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln as scandalous. Her spending habits, her long period of mourning for her three sons who died young and her husband who died next to her and her erratic behaviour later in life have all been examined in minute detail, a pattern of scrutiny that First Ladies continue to face today.
For Lincoln, born on this day in as Mary Ann Todd, it has led many people to attempt to name a medical condition that might have explained her behavior. Even in her own lifetime, Lincoln was considered eccentric, writes Ruth Graham for Slate. She offered him advice, hosted events and sought recommendations for him as he worked on advancing his career in public life.
When he won his Congressional seat, Mary set tongues a-wagging when she decided to accompany him to Washington for part of his term. The Lincolns seemed to be quite the team. When he learned that he had won the presidential election in , he ran home yelling "Mary, Mary, we are elected," according to White House Studies. Most Kentuckians from the Todd's social circle, and indeed her stepfamily, supported the Southern cause, but Mary was a fervent and tireless supporter of the Union.
Widely disliked in the White House, Mary was emotional and outspoken and spent lavishly during a time when budgets were tight to fight the Civil War. Some even accused her of being a Confederate spy. Mary's time in the White House was also marked by tragedy. The couple had already lost their son Edward in to tuberculosis, and when typhoid fever struck their third son William, better known as "Willie," he died in Mary was overcome by grief for a long time.
The intensity of her sadness was so great that even Abraham was concerned for her mental health, according to American Heritage magazine. Mary began to explore spiritualism around this time, another interest of hers that was derided. Little did she know that even more heartbreak was in store for her. On April 14, , Mary sat next to her husband at Ford's Theatre when he was shot by an assassin.
The president died the following day, and Mary never fully recovered. She returned to Illinois and, following the death of her youngest son Thomas in , fell into a deep depression.
Her sole surviving son, Robert, brought her to court on charges of insanity in He claimed that her spending sprees, distorted view of her finances and fears for her own safety were signs of mental illness. The court sided with Robert, and Mary was committed to an insane asylum outside of Chicago. None of Lincoln's primary medical records exists today, with the exception of limited notes doctors kept when she was forcibly institutionalized.
That's only four months of records. Without lab tests or DNA, which provides only limited detail, Sotos is left with about historic sources, including letters and photos from the time. How old is too old to be president? For those who might question this practice -- and some scholars do take issue with any retrospective diagnosis of an historical figure -- Sotos writes, "the amount of information in the historical record exceeds the amount a physician might collect in a minute clinical visit -- a duration clearly sufficient to make many diagnosis.
He argues that only one thing can account for the many disparate mental and physical symptoms he finds described in the letters. Sotos believes Lincoln suffered from pernicious anemia.
The dreaded 'Downton Abbey' disease. Pernicious anemia , which doctors sometimes call PA, has all but disappeared in modern life and from most modern medical literature. Only "Downton Abbey" fans may recognize the disease as spoiler alert London doctors inaccurately diagnosed Lord Merton with it, initially causing much consternation. PA was a death sentence in the early 20th century, when the show took place, and was among the most common reasons for people to be hospitalized.
In Lincoln's time, it wasn't even a diagnosis. According to Sotos' research, PA was not known in English-language medical literature until , eight years before Lincoln's death. Sotos argues that nearly all of Lincoln's symptoms fit the description of PA as it progresses, if left untreated.
A severe vitamin B12 deficiency causes PA. Your body needs B12 to make red blood cells and nerves and to keep DNA functioning properly. People sometimes don't get enough because of their diet -- vegans are vulnerable -- or more often, the stomach wall stops making the chemical the body uses to absorb the vitamin from food. It was deadly because doctors didn't know what caused it.
No treatment surfaced until , when three doctors -- George Whipple, George Minot and William Murphy -- demonstrated that PA patients who ate a half-pound of raw liver daily could be cured. It was such a big medical advance that the trio won the Nobel Prize in When B12 was finally isolated in , it enabled scientists to create a shot that people can get once a month and stay healthy.
PA, a slowly progressive disease, can account for the otherwise seemingly unconnected symptoms throughout Lincoln's life that got worse as she aged, Sotos argues. Sotos lists Lincoln's symptoms over 30 years, which match PA symptoms , including a regular pallor to her skin, fever, headaches, gait problems, abnormal sensations as if she were being stuck by needles, soreness to her mouth, swelling, shortness of breath and resting tachycardia. Psychologically, she started to show signs of hypervigilance, delusions and hallucinations, but all with a kind of perceived clarity.
B12 deficiency shrinks the brain, leading to a significant decline in cognitive function, paranoia and hallucinations. As she got older, the energetic woman who loved to read could no longer see well, and toward the end she became so weak and tired, she could barely move. Eventually, no longer able to speak, she communicated by blinking. At her death, she was diagnosed with "a slight apoplexy," which seems to match the description of other PA deaths at the time, Sotos argues.
So what now?
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