Transcripts For CSPAN3 Presidential Health 20161124 : compar

Transcripts For CSPAN3 Presidential Health 20161124

For coming. Youre watching American History tv on cspan3 every weekend during congressional breaks and on holidays too. Follow us on twitter. Like us on facebook. And find our programs and schedule on our website, cspan. Org history. Coming up next on the presidency, library and Richard Levinson confronts three myths about president s and their health. And how in other cases have saved them all without the public knowing. The central the library, part of the free library of philadelphia hosted this hourlong event. Im pleased to introduce the free librarys own dick levinson. In addition to being our speaker tonight, dick the is a librarian here in the Central Senior Services department of the library and he is really different was really his he was one of the motivators behind this expire series on president ial history. It would not have come without his effort. He has worked at the library since 2009. He conceived, promoted and hosted ava right of intellectually challenging programs for mature adults here at parkway central library. He went a decade at the college of physicians in philadelphia. Dick is a history buff in general but is particularly focused on issues of president ial health. He will shed light on desperately ill and dying president s who deceased the public to the stay in power. I asked if he was going to talk about our current candidates and their health conditions, but he assured me this is entirely historically focused. I hope you enjoy his talk. And with that dick levinson. [ applause ]. I want to thank jeff cooper for that gracious introduction. Our program on Robert Kennedy has proven to be so popular, we worked it from 108 to the auditorium. So please join us there next week. You know, so often in life the people who are laboring behind the scenes doing the real work never get any recognition at all. I want to take a quick minute now to thank three remarkable welcome. Im here to tell you that without them tonights program and our entire american presidency series would never have seen the light of day. Now, the first key theme i want to focus this evening is the idea that american president s have always gotten the very best Health Care Available in whatever era they lived. Well, i want to tell you that this is a charming myth and problems began almost immediately with george washington. You know, after retiring from the presidency, washingtons real job was administering the Family Plantation mt. Vernon. And particularly he would spend hours 6th day writing out on his plantation keeping a close eye on what was going on and intervening whenever necessary because he was a tough boss. One day in december 1799, washington wrote out it was 10 00 in the morning and it was snowing. And is soon the snow turned over into a cold, relenting rain. Washington was not property dressed for the winter. In minutes, his head and neck were secced. Soaked. He didnt do the common sense thing you and i would have done immediately. He did not change out of his wet clothes and put on dry ones. He answers some letters, did various projects around the house, enjoyed a leisurely dinner the. He didnt change out of his clothes until it was time for bed. It was not surprising that in two days he is feeling really, really sick. And the locust of the problem was washingtons throat. What the problem was depends which historian you want to believe. Some say that he had a terrible case of tonsillitis. Others it was a very bad strep throat. Some historians have even referred to the soft tissue at the front of his voice box speculating that that tissue grew so large and inflamed that it began to choke off washingtons windpipe. But this is not in dispute. It became agony for the former president to swallow. And breathing was pretty hard too. And this was all complicated by the fact that in washingtons time, american medicine was mired in the middle ages. The prevailing medical model suggested that human beings were made up of various fluids and the key to good health was keeping them in proper balance, the right alignment as if humans were automobiles. There werent very many tools you could use to balance those humors. There was blood letting and fusion. Blood letting is danger theous and you can do a lot of damage if you didnt know what you were doing. I bet there are some fans of robin hood here in this audience. And i bet they remember in most versions of the robin hood legend, robin hood meets his by a relative who betrayed him. He had members of the household staff bleed him. And when the three doors who were ultimately caring for washington arrived, what do you think happened then . They bled him again. Not just once but repeatedly. On a practical level what they did was to destroyed whatever strength or resilience the former president had left and he would so desperately need to recover from this infection and get well. As a result of this he was in a very weakened state. The youngest, a man actually named dr. Dick, argued strongly on behalf of a new experimental treatment, a trach on the my. He wanted to make an incision in washingtons throat believing it would make it easier for the president to breathe. The two older doctors had a fit because they were obsessed with the idea that if an experimental treatment was tried and he died, they would go down as the doctors who killed george washington. Given he was in a weakened state, we dont know if he would have survived if the trach on the my would have been performed. But the sad truth is by refusing to allow dr. Dick to do the trach on the my they guaranteed the one outcome they were trying most to a avoid. So now were going to take a big jump ahead in history, the year is now 1881. The president is an Ohio Republican james a. Garfield. We are now 16 years from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. And people in the white house still havent gotten the message, havent read the memo, havent really learned what we need to do to protect american president s and keep them secure. Like some of the people in this room, James Garfield had a summer house at the jersey shore. And one very hot summer he simply wanted to be reunited with his family. He wanted to take the train from washington, d. C. To the jersey shore. And people in the white house allowed him to drive to the train station with his secretary of state james g. Blain in blains carriage with no security whatsoever. When they arrived at the train station they were met by another member of garfields administration, robert todd lincoln, the son of our most revered president. But no security whatsoever. Thats how garfields assassin, charles gu toe, was able to sneak up from behind, pull out a pistol and shoot him point plank in the back. Garfield ex claimed, oh, my god, what is this, and collapsed on the ground. Now, let me Say Something about charles gu toe and what it was he was attempted to accomplish. He was a low level federal employee. He was a clerk in one of the federal agencies. He was a pathetic little man. And its also i think true to say that he was insane. This is a man who sadly failed at everything he tried to do in life with the single exception of killing president garfield. He suffered from delusions of grandeur. He felt he was put on earth to do missions from the almighty. One of the missions was to make it possible for Chester Allen arthur, who was actually garfields Vice President , to become president. The Republican Party was divided into two factions at this time. And gu toe was a great believer in the faction headed by Chester Allen arthur. So he believed by committing this heinous act that he was carrying out gods will and securing his own destiny. Well, in terms of what happened to garfield, i want to talk for a minute about the state of medicine. Once again, american medicine was lagging behind. I think that many of you have heard something about joseph lister, the pioneering british surgeon and humanitarian. As early as 1867, lister had demonstrated by using carbolic acid it was possible to sterilize medical instruments before doing surgery. It was possible to clean out a patients wounds so he or she would not die of infection like millions and millions of people before. And lister believed this so strongly that when america celebrated its great centennial in 1876 and here in philadelphia there was that terrific worlds fair, the wonderful centennial exhibition, lister came here because it was an opportunity to talk to some of the most important members of the medical Community Based on the east coast. So lister actually gives a talk as part of that centennial exhibition. The room is packed. All the most important doctors from the eastern part of the United States were there, including willard bliss, the man who would ultimately be responsible for garfields care. But unfortunately, you know, this is before the era of scientific medicine. Germs could not be seen. And so those doctors wrote lister off as a well meaning cook. This is when american doctors did not wash their hands before seeing patients. They didnt sterilize their instruments before operating. And they took particular pride in wearing their faithy blood encrusted white coats week after week, month after month, year after year. It was a point of pride for many of them. So in terms of garfields situation, im sorry to say, what happened is as a result of the doctors constantly poking and probing at garfields wounds with their unwashed fingers and unsterilized metal probes, the people who wanted to help garfield actually killed him. The bitter irony is if ever a man was meant to survive, James Garfield was that man. He lingered for more than 60 days after being shot. You know, if he had only received less attention from doctors he almost certainly would have survived. Now, i would like to quickly call your attention to a couple of points. I think its very interesting that america survived without any real president for nearly 80 days. And we were absolutely fine. There were no ill effects whatsoever. So i think it tells the you something about how much americas position in the world has changed from 1881 to now. Secondly, i want to Say Something about the tragic case of robert todd lincoln. He was present for all three president ial assassinations that occurred during his lifetime. I wonder what the statistical odds are of Something Like that being possible. And i wanted a man whose name is often forgotten today. Charles perbs. He was the chief surgeon of what was known as the freemans hospital in washington, d. C. He is the first black doctor to care for an american president. We should all know his name. And i think its a shame that we do not. Well, now, i want to jump ahead in history once again. Were now at the year 1901. The president is another Ohio Republican, William Mckinley. And in the city of buffalo they are having a Great International exposition, a worlds fair. And the organizers said, well, gosh, we have to invite the president and give him an opportunity to come. And mckinley wanted to come and give a speech. But here again, were now 36 years from the time that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And were still doing things the same way. People in the white house allowed William Mckinley to become a sitting duck. They arranged for him to participate in an open receiving line where any Interested Party could join the line, greet the president , shake his hand. And thats exactly what his assassin did. And this gentleman was an anarchist. He believed the best thing to hand for mankind is to rise up and kill as many president s, Prime Ministers and kings as possible. And he certainly intended to do his share. This man was immaculately dressed. He certainly seemed to fit right in. But interestingly, people noticed that this hand was covered by a small tee towel. And that they assumed was that he was hiding some sort of injury or wound. In reality, when this man got very close to mckinley in the line, he whipped away the tea towel. Hidden in the hand was a small caliber pistol. He proceeds to shoot mckinley several times pointblank in the stomach. Even today thats a very serious injury. And im afraid that from that point on everything that could go wrong did go wrong. First of all, in a community the size of buffalo there was at least one gentleman with a national and International Reputation as a surgeon. And wouldnt you know on the day that mckinley is shot, hes hours away from the City Consulting on another case. So a stomach wound is serious business. The president needed Urgent Medical attention. And the only doctor they could get on such short notice was an ob gyn. So really not qualified for the mission he was given. And can you imagine the terrible pressure that this man was under . It must have been awful. And so its really not very surprising that he didnt clean the president s wounds properly. Didnt close them up properly afterwards. Those two mistakes guaranteed that William Mckinley would die. Once mckinley was dead, the first thing that his number one paet ron and friend, mark hannah. Mark hannah was an ohio businessman and important political boss at this time. When he learned mckinley was dead he said the following. Now, that damn cowboy is president of the United States. And he was referring to theodore roosevelt, who was in fact, our Vice President. And how t. R. Happened to be Vice President is a really intriguing story. Roosevelt might have been a devout republican, but he was a liberal. By temperament and inclination he was a reformer. And that was enough to make him public enemy number one in the mind of tom platte, who was the republican boss in the state of new york. And the man who ran one of the most powerful and effective political machines in all of america. And platte had had a belly full of roosevelt and his conscience, his complaints, and objections. And he resolved to use his political power to force roosevelt onto the political ticket of William Mckinley. And he figured that if he could do it, hed never have to be bothered with roosevelt again. Well, i guess that was not a very good call. The second thing that i want to focus on tonight is the idea that president s have always been truthful and honest with congress and the American People about the state of their health. Well, sadly, that is another myth. Thats true partly because people are never, or almost never give up great power voluntarily. And the other thing, and i would say if theres one takeaway from tonights talk, youre about to hear it. The other thing is that a president s shortterm political needs always trump longer term health concerns. Always, always, always. The first president that i want to talk about in relation to this is actually a democrat, finally. Grover cleveland, who was a democrat from the state of new york. The only american president to serve two nonconsecutive is terms. And he had the misfortune to serve his second term during what was the worst economic crisis in the United States until the great crash of 1929. And, you know, cleveland was not a brilliant man, not an intellectu intellectual, but he had a lot of common sense. And he embraced the gold standard, which meant he did good on wall street. And i think was slowly but effectively working his way out of this mess when one american he awakes to discover a lump on the roof of his mouth that had not been there two or three days before. Subsequently, a biopsy reveals that the lump was cancerous. And now cleveland is truly panicked. For two reasons. He had made a commitment to address the joint session of congress and to lay out his strategy for getting america out of this financial crisis. Can you imagine if a president of the United States makes a commitment like that and then doesnt show . I mean, that sends a pretty powerful message that something is terribly wrong. The other thing cleveland was worried about is his Vice President. Because as a result of a political deal he had accepted as his Vice President a man named adelaide stevenson. Not the stevenson we remember from 1952 and 1956, his grandfather. This stevenson was a very popular politician, ameable man. He was an inflationist. He was a believer in soft money for the coinage of silver. Well, to people on wall street, that made him worse than satan himself. One of the things that was concerning cleveland was the idea that died and add light stevens became president , the Financial Institutions of the country would simply collapse. That is why Grover Cleveland had to endure a secret operation on a yacht off long island sound. Those doctors juryrigged a chair, strapped the president in and began to operate. In fairness, given some of the other comments i made earlier about doctors in american medicine, these doctors did a wonderful job. They not only removed the growth but they got all the cancer. We know this is true because cleveland lived on in very good health until the year 1908. But there was still a serious problem. Because cleveland, as you recall, had made this commitment to address a joint session of congress. And the problem was you dont have to take the very much tissue out of somebodys mouth before they can no longer communicate in a way so that other people can understand him. Interestingly, medical progress never moves along, you know, a unified front at the same time. Its always, you know, moving ahead here, falling back there. And fortunately at the time that cleveland had this surgery, one thing

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