Given the nature of your bizarre posts these days, there is enough evidence that you have syphilitic dementia. Or perhaps Tourette's best explains your vile behavior.
Please consider professional help.
POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis
ISBN 0-465-02881-0
By Deborah Hayden
Abraham Lincoln
Excerpt from Lincoln chapter:
According to Lincoln’s biographer, friend, and law partner for eighteen years, William Herndon, Lincoln told him that he had been infected with syphilis in Beardstown in 1835 or 1836. Herndon wrote to his co-author “Friend Weik” in January 1891, wishing that he had not put the confidence in writing:
When I was in Greencastle in 1887 I said to you that Lincoln had, when a mere boy, the syphilis, and now let me explain the matter in full, which I have never done before. About the year 1835-36 Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this and in a moment of folly I made a note of it in my mind and afterwards I transferred it, as it were, to a little memorandum book which I loaned to Lamon, not, as I should have done, erasing that note. About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up quarters with [Joshua] Speed; they became very intimate. At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him and, not wishing to trust our physicians, wrote a note to Doctor Drake, the latter part of which he would not let Speed see, not wishing Speed to know it. Speed said to me that Lincoln would not let him see a part of the note. Speed wrote to me a letter saying that he supposed L’s letter to Doctor Drake had reference to his, L’s crazy spell about the Ann Rutledge love affair, etc., and her death. You will find Speeds’ letter to me in our Life of Lincoln. The note to Doctor Drake in part had reference to his disease and not to his crazy spell as Speed supposes. The note spoken of in the memorandum book was a loose affair, and I never intended that the world should see or hear of it. I now wish and for years have wished that the note was blotted out or burned to ashes. I write this to you, fearing that at some future time the note-a loose thing as to date, place, and circumstances-will come to light and be misunderstood. Lincoln was a man of terribly strong passion, but was true as steel to his wife during his whole marriage life, as Judge Davis has said, saved many a woman, and it most emphatically true, as I know. I write this to you to explain the whole matter for the future if it should become necessary to do so. I deeply regret my part of the affair in every particular.
In a postscript, he adds that a Mrs. Dale saw the book and took note of its contents, and so he fears that the contents may come to light from that source.
Herndon tells us that Lincoln moved in with Speed in 1836-37 and, to repeat from the letter, “at this time I suppose that the disease hung to him [italics added] and, not wishing to trust our physicians, [he] wrote a note to Doctor Drake.” But there is an odd discrepancy in the Speed letter to Herndon published in the Life of Lincoln (completed in 1888-the year before the letter to Weik cited above) and dated 30 November 1866. Here Speed puts the date of the letter to Drake several years later:
Lincoln wrote a letter -- a long one which he read to me-to Dr. Drake of Cincinnati, descriptive of his case. Its date would be in December 1840, or early in January 1841. I think that he must have informed Dr. Drake of his early love Miss Rutledge, as there was a part of the letter which he would not read . . . I remember Dr. Drake’s reply, which was, that he would not undertake to prescribe for him without a personal interview. Here Speed tells Herndon that Lincoln would not let him read part of the letter and guesses that he must have informed Drake of his early love for Ann Rutledge. He remembers Dr. Drake’s reply, that he could not prescribe medication without a personal interview.
The first reference to a contact with Dr. Drake in 1836-37 would have been within one or two years of the initial infection in Beardstown, thus in the highly infectious stage. The second reference, December 1840-January 1841, would have been four to five years after Beardstown, or well into the middle stage of disease. Hirschhorn, Feldman, and Greaves assign the Drake contact to the later date.
Mary Todd Lincoln
Excerpt from Lincoln chapter:
Syphilis was suggested in Mary Todd’s medical history when Norbert Hirschhorn and Robert Feldman published an article in 1999 reviewing the work of the four doctors who had diagnosed her progressive spinal trouble. Finding a clear case of tabes dorsalis, Hirschhorn and Feldman argue convincingly that the doctors would have known very well by then that tabes was caused by syphilis in the majority of cases and would have opted to save her reputation (and to assure a benefit that might have been withheld by a censorious Congress) by stating that her tabes dorsalis was caused by an injury to her spine when she fell from the French chair. “Given the widespread medical knowledge about tabes dorsalis at the close of 1881 and what then was considered its most likely cause [syphilis], it was inevitable that the four physicians chose the least pejorative diagnosis, however marginally acceptable it was to progressive medical opinion.” Jonathan Hutchinson concluded that it was generally accepted that tabes occurs “almost solely” in those who have previously suffered from syphilis. P.J. Möbius went one step further: “The longer I reflect upon it, the more firmly I believe that tabes never originates without syphilis.”
The tabes diagnosis gives a fresh interpretation to the reasons for Mary Todd’s incarceration: “Symptoms imputed to insanity at her trial clearly had their origin in the organic disease of tabes dorsalis.” The authors point out that the lightning pains of tabes were often described with vivid images appropriate to such extreme agony, such as having wires taken out of the eyes or, as Mary also complained, of being hacked to pieces by knives, or of having a sharp, burning agony in the back, or feeling as if one were on fire.
Deborah Hayden
Abraham Lincoln & Syphilis--idea for an article
The source that Abraham Lincoln had been infected with syphilis is none other than Lincoln himself, according to his biographer, friend, and law partner, William Herndon. In a letter to his co-author, Herndon wrote: "When I was in Greencastle in 1887, I said to you that Lincoln had, when a mere boy, the syphilis, and now let me explain the matter in full, which I have never done before. About the year 1835-36, Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this and in a moment of folly I made note of it in my mind and afterwards I transferred it, as it were, to a little memorandum book which I loaned to Lamon, not, as I should have done, erasing that note. About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up quarter with [Joshua] Speed; they became very intimate. At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him, and not wanting to trust our physicians, wrote a note to Doctor Drake."
In my chapter on Lincoln, I made the point that there is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that Lincoln did have syphilis, and that he was probably taking the "little blue mercury pills" not for melancholia as has been suggested, but for on-going syphilis.
What is remarkable about this whole story is how it has been almost completely ignored in the vast Lincoln scholarship. The question of whether or not Lincoln had syphilis, and how good the clinical evidence of that is, demands further research. But there is a more interesting question. What if Lincoln believed that he had syphilis? And why have there been so many biographies of Lincoln that don't even mention Herndon's letter, let alone ponder the implications?
Gore Vidal is about the only one who brought the whole thing into the open, when he said on the Larry King television program, that both Abraham and Mary Lincoln were infected with syphilis. But he didn't do his homework to pull together a convincing story -- and he didn't have Norbert Hirschhorn's two articles -- the one showing that the "blue mass" that Lincoln took was mercury, or the one showing that Mary Todd's four doctors in 1882 almost assuredly believed that she was suffering from tertiary syphilis in the form of tabes dorsalis. (I make the point in my chapter that Mary Todd's mental imbalance points toward a diagnosis of taboparesis-- that is, both tabes and paresis, but that is another story.
Douglas L. Wilson (co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College, in Galesburg, Illinois) mentions the Herndon-Greencastle passage in an article in the Atlantic, but he leaves it without comment, although he does deal with it in a bit more detail in Honor's Voice, his 1998 biography of Lincoln.
So -- this question is posed to the Lincoln scholars: what difference does it make to our view of Lincoln and his place in history if he was, as he said to Herndon, another secret syphilitic?
I'm tempted to write to a handful of Lincoln scholars and ask them this question.
Gore Vidal
Devotees of the Mount Rushmore school of history like to think that the truely great man is a virgin until his wedding night; and a devoted monogamist thereafter. Apparently, Lincoln was indeed "true as steel" to Mary Todd even though, according to Herndon, "I have seen women make advances and I have seen Lincoln reject or refuse them. Lincoln had terrible strong passions for women, could scarcely keep his hands off them, and yet he had honor and strong will, and these enabled him to put out the fires of his terrible passion." But in his youth he was seriously burned by those fires. In the pre-penicillin era syphilis was epidemic - and, usually, incurable. According to Herndon: "About the year 1835-36 Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this . . " Later, after a long seige, Lincoln was cured, if he was cured, by a Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati.
Herndon suspected that Lincoln might have given Mary Todd syphilis. If he had, that would have explained the premature deaths of three Lincoln children: "Poor boys, they are dead now and gone! I should like to know one thing that this is: What caused the death of these children? I have an opinion which I shall never state to anyone." So stated to everyone Herndon. The autopsy on Mary Todd showed a physical deterioration of the brain consistent with paresis. If Lincoln had given his wife syphilis and if he had, inadvertently, caused the death of his children, the fits of melancholy are now understandable - and unbearably tragic.
Gore Vidal
As for Lincoln's syphilis, I use the words Herndon himself used: "About the year 1835-36 Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease [syphilis]. Lincoln told me this . . . About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield . . At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him and, not wishing to trust our physicians, he wrote to Doctor Drake." Since there is no reason for Herndon to lie about this, I suppose we should all agree upon it as a fact. But since no saint has ever had syphilis, Herndon is a liar and so the consensus finds against him.
Hirschhorn and Feldman, with a third author, Ian A. Greaves, [22] followed their article on Mary Todd s tabes with another find from a letter written by Herndon: "Mr. Lincoln had an evacuation, a passage, about once a week, ate blue mass." [23] They found elemen-tal mercury to be the active ingredient in blue mass, or blue pills, a medication Lincoln took over an extended period. They even had the blue pills recreated in the laboratory using a recipe from 1879 consisting of licorice root, rosewater, honey, and sugar, plus mer-cury and dead rose petals. Each pill contained approximately 65 grams of elemental mercury. The authors suggest that Lincoln may have been treated with the blue pills for melancholia, or hypochondriasis. Since syphilis sufferers were both depressed and had so many mysterious ailments that they often thought themselves to be hypochondriacs, the blue pills could have been prescribed for the "syphilis that hung to him" and melancholia and hypochondriasis at the same time.
In the "Blue Pills" article, Hirschhorn, Feldman, and Greaves find Lincoln's secrecy about the medication explained by the "op-probrium that would have been attached to the diagnosis of hypochondriasis in a person who aimed for high office." [24] Syphilis would have been very much more of a reason for circumspection, and a good reason to consult an out-of-town doctor. They suggest that Lincoln suffered from the neurobehavioral consequences of mercury intoxication-rage, for example. Herndon recalled that Lincoln looked like Lucifer when he was in an uncontrollable temper; he once shook a man until his teeth chattered. [25] Prone to moody silences, he was also observed talking "wild and incoherent nonsense" to himself. He had insomnia and headaches and wor-ried about a tremor in his signature. An observer noted in 1863 that Lincoln "certainly is growing feeble. He wrote a note while I was present, and his hand trembled as I never saw it before, and he looked worn and haggard." [26] Lincoln had premonitions that he did not have long to live, and he feared madness. He took the little blue pills at least until 1861, a few months after his inauguration, and may have started them much earlier. Mary Todd tried them in December 1869. She had a quick and severe reaction and supposedly discontinued them immediately.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Hirschhorn et al., "Blue Pills," 315-332.
[23] Hertz, 199.
[24] Hirschorn et al., "Blue Pills," 328.
[25] Hirschorn et al., "Blue Pills," 318.
"Hertz": Emanuel Hertz, The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and papers of William H. Herndon (New York:Viking, 1938)
"Blue Pills": Norbert Hirschorn, Robert G. Feldman, and Ian A. Greaves, "Abraham Lincoln's Blue Pills," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 44, no. 3 (Summer 2001)
SOURCE: Deborah Hayden, POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis, Basic Books, (2003), pp. 130-1.
Mercurial remedies were developed by the alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) in an attempt to find the "Elixir Vitae," a substance that would purify the body of all disease. Gold, which neither rusts nor tarnishes and is the color of the sun, source of life and energy, was amalgamated with mercury derived from blood-red colored cinnabar ore. Mercury, which had for centuries been used by the Arabs to treat leprosy and yaws, was first used in Europe for the treatment of syphilis in 1497. Hawkers of remedies, or quack-salvers (those who quacked about their salves), promising speedy and complete cures, became known as "quacks," the pejorative as-pect deriving in particular from those itinerant vendors who pushed toxic mercury salve, known as quicksilver or quacksilver, for the treatment of syphilis. Reputable physicians also used mer-cury as their main treatment; this chemotherapy was still found to be "the most potent weapon of attack on syphilis” [2] well into the twentieth century.Mercury, a shiny element with the chemical symbol Hg, weighs 13.6 times as much as an equal volume of water. Iron, stone, and lead can float on its surface. Physicians who applied mercury-based ointments reported a lessening of their patients' pain and clearing of ulcers, but they tended to use such enormous quantities of the toxic metal that a price was paid in physical side effects, including new ulceration, dermatological eruptions, paral-ysis, shaking, anorexia, gastric distress, diarrhea, nausea, and rotting and loosening of teeth. The syphilitic overdosed with mercury would experience unquenchable thirst even while producing gushing saliva measured in pints and quarts, often while being en-cased in a steam box daily for a month. A hot iron applied to the skull to curtail salivation when absorbing vast quantities of mer-cury was one of the tortures these patients endured. Alchemists who distilled the quicksilver from heated cinnabar mixed the liq-uid metal with henna and herbs and heated it in a dry vessel over coals. The patient sat over a skillet under a cloak and inhaled the fumes.
Today, when dentists debate whether people are wise to have mercury amalgam fillings removed to prevent trace amounts of mercury escaping into the system, mercury applied to the point of extreme salivation seems unconscionable and illustrates how des-perate the early practitioners were to find a cure for the hideous malady. How to kill the spirochete without killing the patient or causing damage as serious as that of the original illness was the challenge facing the first doctors treating syphilis. Oncologists to-day face a similar challenge with chemotherapy.
Mercury added diagnostic confusion when it produced symp-toms that also mimicked other diseases or even the syphilis itself. How, for example, could a doctor distinguish the neurological damage of tertiary syphilis from the neurological damage of mer-cury poisoning? Or mercury paralysis from that of tabes? It was thought that mercury could cause deafness, but so could syphilis.
When the "little blue pill," also known as the small-dose gray powder pill, took the place of salve as a way of dispensing mercury in the middle of the eighteenth century, syphilitics had a treatment that was easily administered and allowed them to keep their mor-tifying secret. They no longer gleamed with a blue sheen or smelled like a fried potato. Mercury pills contained rosewater, honey, licorice, and conserve of rose petals. During many years of practice, Jonathan Hutchinson found "warm advocates" of treat-ment with the gray powder pill when the dose was kept continu-ous, frequent, and small. He recommended one grain of powder every six, four, three, or even two hours according to circum-stances, and found that one pill four times a day was sufficient to clear up a chancre or a secondary eruption. He forbade fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh air during treatment. He specifically ad-vised against treatment to the point of salivation except in ex-treme cases.
Hutchinson believed that those who had kept to long regi-mens of mercury were less apt than others to develop tertiary symptoms. Irregular and excessive mercurial treatment would jeopardize health, but there would be no loss to general health, Hutchinson promised, if mercury were employed in the way suggested over a long enough time. In cases where there were pre-monitory symptoms of late syphilis, Hutchinson even advocated a lifelong course. In the early stages, mercury destroyed the parasite, Hutchinson maintained, while in later years it was useful against inflammatory damage. John Stokes also testified to an extraordi-nary factor of safety combined with therapeutic effectiveness after treating some ten thousand patients who had taken hundreds of thousands of mercury rubs in his clinic.
If some thought that only mercury in abundance cured, the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, proposed the oppo-site: to cure syphilis with infinitesimal doses. His student Hartmann wrote: "In that stage of the Syphilitic disease, where the Chancre or the Bubo is yet existing, one single dose of the best mercurial preparation is sufficient to effect a permanent cure of the internal disease, together with the Chancre in the space of a fort-night." As to the dose, "I was formerly in the habit of using suc-cessfully 1,2 or 3 globules of the billionth degree, i.e., the 6th cen-tesimal dilution, for the cure of Syphilis. The higher the degrees, however, even the decillionth (the 30th) acts more thoroughly, more speedily and more mildly. If more than one dose should be required, which is seldom the case, the lower degrees may be then employed." [3] Hahnemann claimed that he had never seen syphilis breaking out in the system when the chancre had been cured by homeopathy, unless there had been a previous overuse of mercury.
It is fitting that the remedies for early syphilis potent enough to kill spirochetes deep in the tissues were the heavy metals, mer-cury and bismuth, and a poison, arsenic. The other major syphilis medication, potassium iodide, used more for resolution of the gummy tumors of late syphilis and for advanced syphilis of the heart, was more benign, although patients complained of depres-sion. Martin of Lubeck first administered an iodide for syphilis in 1821, using a burned sponge for the treatment of venereal ulcers of the throat. Wallace of Dublin used potassium salt in 1834.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Burton Peter Thom, Syphilis (Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1922), 202.
[3] N.K. Banerjee, Homeopathjy in the Treatment of Gonorrhea & Syphilis (Delhi: B. Jain, 1995), 158.
SOURCE: Deborah Hayden, POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis, Basic Books, (2003), pp. 45-8.