BOOK OF THE DAY: FDR's Deadly SecretBy Stephen Lomazow MD and Eric Fettmann Public Affairs, 296pp, $25.95
FRANKLIN DELANO Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States. He may well have been the greatest statesman of the 20th century, having been elected for an unprecedented four terms as president.
He was first elected in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression and his New Deal strategy for the US is widely believed to have set the country on the road to recovery. He died in office in April 1945, having presided over the US to the second World War. He was also pivotal to the discussions with Churchill and Stalin that shaped the world stage for the period after the war.
Born in 1882, it can be said that FDR had more than his share of serious illness throughout his life. These illnesses are charted meticulously by Stephen Lomazow MD, a neurologist at Mount Sinai school of medicine, and a lecturer in politics and medicine. Co-author Eric Fettmann is a journalist of note and a political columnist.
This book details the health problems of the president and questions the accepted cause of his death. It raises the uncomfortable dichotomy between the personal rights to medical privacy and the rights of the citizens to know their leaders are not incapacitated by illness to a degree as to render them unable to carry on their duties. This is a subject covered by Dr David Owen (now Lord Owen) in his excellent book In Sickness and in Power: Illness in Heads of Government During the Last 100 Years.
FDR’s Deadly Secret is about one man and his myriad health problems. It is about the obsessive secrecy designed to keep the nature and extent of his illnesses away from public scrutiny. In August 1921, while holidaying on Campobello Island, Roosevelt was stricken with a severe flu-like illness, with fever, chills and muscle pains.
The day after onset, he had urinary problems and difficulty in walking. He was diagnosed with polio and the residual paralysis of his lower limbs remained for life. The story of his rehabilitation and determination to lead a normal life is well told here. He and those around him were secretive in the extreme as to the extent of his disability and went to great lengths to conceal it. He managed to walk, with aid of callipers and timely assistance, to make it appear he was not wheelchair-bound. The concealment worked and he was elected as president for the first time 11 years later.
His medical woes were far from over. As president, he had as personal physician Admiral Ross T McIntire, an ear, nose and throat specialist. McIntire called in help as required and one such naval doctor, Howard Bruenn, diagnosed Roosevelt’s severe hypertension and consequent arteriosclerosis and heart failure.
At the time of his final election, in 1944, the president was clearly a very sick man. Many held that he was now unfit for office. The cover-up continued. Finally, the great man fell. The diagnosis was massive cerebral haemorrhage due to his major hypertension. Crucially, and unexplained to this day, no postmortem was held.
The authors cover the medical treatment of the president’s many conditions and postulate that the final diagnosis may have been incorrect. They aver that for many years the president may have been suffering from cancer, manifested by a mole or melanoma over his left eye. This is a fascinating medical detective story.
Maurice Neligan is a retired cardiac surgeon and a columnist with The Irish Times'shealth supplement, HealthPLUS, published on Tuesdays
