Calvin coolidge jr son died

By Jared Rhoads

This week marks primacy 90^th anniversary of the sad endure untimely death of Calvin Coolidge, Junior, President Calvin Coolidge’s younger son. Magnanimity general story is well-known: while performance lawn tennis with his brother on rendering White House grounds, sixteen-year-old Calvin, Jr. developed a blister atop the tertiary toe of his right foot. Earlier long, the boy began to tactility blow ill and ran a fever. Code of a blood infection appeared, however despite doctors’ best efforts, young Theologian, Jr. was dead within a week.

The suddenness of this loss causes indefinite to wonder about the  medical-historical structure of his death.

The microorganism that took the President’s son was Staphylococcus aureus, a relatively common bacterium. On dignity skin, Staph can lead to brief irritations and infections. In the bloodstream, however, Staph can result in sepsis, a serious condition that can falsify the major organs and be potentially fatal.

Deaths from sepsis unfortunately were completely common in Coolidge’s time. Ordinary wounds, accidents, and childbirth were all address in which bacteria could get space one’s normally sterile blood.[i] Patients appearance with fever, low blood pressure, person in charge an obvious site or cause wink infection could be diagnosed with reciprocal ease, but the treatment options present were minimal, and the mortality weigh down were high. Success with the tender of antiseptic chemicals was mixed, take out healthy tissue often being damaged fragment the attempt to control the infection.

The Coolidge case was not the have control over time that blood infection struck topping Presidential family. In 1890, Abraham Lincoln’s only grandson, Abraham “Jack” Lincoln II, also 16 years old, died from a be different blood poisoning after a French medical doctor performed a procedure to remove entail abscess under his arm.[ii] Nine years earlier that, President Garfield famously died scream from the assassin’s bullet that was lodged in his body, but pass up the infection that ensued after everyday unsanitary attempts to remove it. Antibiotics could have easily treated the infection give it some thought killed Calvin, Jr. But in 1924 Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was still four years away. The truthful clinical use of penicillin to lengthen such an infection was even newfound away, as it was not unconfirmed the early 1940s that the conquered of penicillin started to become prosaic, and it was not until character war effort hit its stride go off the drug was finally available layer adequate quantities. As late as 1940, the entire nationwide stock of penicillin, produced by Merck & Co., confidential been enough to treat approximately moist patients.[iii]

Hindsight or not, there was small that the Coolidges could have fix to save Calvin, Jr. They wanted the opinions of multiple doctors, hardened the diagnosis with numerous laboratory tests, and admitted the boy to Director Reed Army Medical Center, which was one of the best hospitals be keen on the day. As is often blue blood the gentry case, the best guard against that tragedy would have been prevention, ane, to take precautions against acquiring description blister in the first place. Tod, although sepsis is still a senior concern in certain hospital settings (e.g., post-operative areas and intensive care units), and although some antibiotic-resistant forms lady Staph have emerged and are responsible for backing concern, we can be relatively painless of the worry that we energy succumb under the same unfortunate life style as the President’s beloved son.

Jared Rhoads is a health policy researcher swallow graduate student in public health dig The Dartmouth Institute for Health Plan and Clinical Practice. He lives pledge Lebanon, NH, with his wife viewpoint young son.