The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician's Point of View - Hardcover

John R. Bumgarner

9780899509563: The Health of the Presidents: The 41 United States Presidents Through 1993 from a Physician's Point of View

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0899509568 ISBN 13: 9780899509563

Publisher: McFarland Publishing, 1994

The complete medical history of each of the 41 U.S. presidents, emphasizing illnesses that affected them during their administrations, is here set out for the lay reader by a physician. The presidents' health care regimens and physicians' treatments are also discussed.

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About the Author:

The late John R. Bumgarner, M.D., was also the author of Sarah Childress Polk (1997) and Parade of the Dead (1995). He lived in Greensboro, North Carolina.

From Library Journal:

Within the last two years there have been several excellent investigations of the medical health of presidents, but this is the first one to provide a chronologically arranged review of the health of all chief executives throughout their lives. Although it lacks the depth and analysis of Robert Gilbert's The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House (LJ 11/15/92) or Robert Ferrell's Ill-Advised: Presidential Health and Public Trust (LJ 9/15/92), the convenience of its five-to ten-page summaries in one source makes it worthy of consideration. The readable case studies are enlivened by the author's medical opinions, which stress that until the 1930s medical treatment was primitive. It is amazing that more presidents did not die from cures that included purging, bleeding, and unsanitary, groping surgery than the actual illness. To his credit, Bumgarner does not offer psychological profiles of the contemporary presidents, though the book would have been strengthened by a conclusion summarizing the evolution of presidential medical care. Recommended for public library circulating collections or as a reference complementing the Encyclopedia of the American Presidency (LJ 1/94).
Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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