Did A “Field of Human Excrement” By The White House Kill A President?

If you call up President William Henry Harrison from U.S. history class at all , then you credibly remember him as the piteous fellow who died from pneumonia a month after deliver his inaugural address in immobilise rain . Except was it really pneumonia after all ? ANew York Times articlesuggests a unlike hypothesis , and a cautionary fib against giving long speeches instead turn into one against improper sewage systems .

Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiakwriting in the Timesset the fetid prospect for us in 19th - hundred Washington , DC :

In those daylight the nation ’s capital had no sewer system . Until 1850 , some sewerage but flowed onto public grounds a brusque distance from the White House , where it stagnated and mold a marsh ; the White House water provision was just seven blocks downstream of a depository for “ night territory , ” hauled there each day at government disbursal .

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That field of human excretion would have been a breeding ground for two deadly bacteria , Salmonella typhi and S. paratyphi , the lawsuit of typhoid and paratyphoid fever — also known as enteral fever , for their annihilating effect on the gastrointestinal system .

Harrison ’s symptom and the time course of his illness point to a diagnosis other than pneumonia , most likely enteral feverishness . Two other presidents — James Polk and Zachary Taylor — also fell inauspicious to severe stomach bugs during their clip in the pre - sewer days of the White House .

While Washington DC now enjoys modern sanitization , the bacteria in the skinny still causes devastating illness that is thesecond leading cause of deathin children under five around the world . Enteric febricity may feel like faraway problem for produce Carry Amelia Moore Nation now , but it once strike in the very heart of our nation . [ New York Times ]

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