By Matthew Algeo
In early June of 1893 , President Grover Cleveland — who was born on March 18 , 1837 — discovered a turgid tumor on the roof of his mouth . The cancer was progressing promptly . Doctors determined that if the Chief Executive was to subsist , the growth had to be removed . But the operation was complicated , and Cleveland ’s doctors dread that the operating room could spark a cerebrovascular accident . There was also a 15 percent fortune in those daytime that the president could die under the knife . After count his selection , Cleveland choose to have the tumour removed , under one condition : The operation had to be carry in total secrecy . The president reverence that Wall Street — already reeling from falling stock prices in the thick of a depression — would panic if intelligence of his illness leak . Even his frailty president , Adlai Stevenson , was to be kept in the night .
On the morning of June 30 , President Cleveland and six of the land ’s finest physicians tack together on board theOneida , a yacht anchored in New York Harbor . Sitting in a deck of cards chair , the president fume cigars and chatted amiably with the human as the boat set sail for Long Island Sound . The follow morning , the doctor sputter below deck to prepare for the surgery . In lieu of an operating table , a large chair was bound to the mast in the yacht ’s front room . A individual light incandescent lamp , connected to a portable battery , would bring home the bacon all of the light . The MD boil their instruments and pulled crisp white-hot aprons over their dark suits . Shortly after noon , the president entered the parlour and took his seat .
Using nitrous oxide and ether as anesthetics , the doctors remove the neoplasm , along with five teeth and much of Cleveland ’s upper left palate and jawbone . The procedure lasted 90 minutes . It also took place totally within the patient ’s mouth , so that no external scrape would rat the clandestine surgery .
On July 5 , Cleveland was dropped off at his summer home on Cape Cod . He heal signally tight . By the center of July , he was fitted with a vulcanized gum elastic prosthesis that plug the hole in his mouth and restored his normal public speaking phonation . All the while , the populace was secernate that the president had but suffered a odontalgia .
On August 29,The Philadelphia Presspublished an exposé by Elisha Jay Edwards . The newspaper headline read , “ The President A Very Sick Man . ” Edwards , the composition ’s Manhattan correspondent , had been tipped off by a New York medico who ’d heard rumor of the secret surgery . After some additional dig , Edwards located Ferdinand Hasbrouck , the dentist who had administered the anesthesia to Cleveland , and verify the details .
The Philadelphia Pressstory was signally exact . In fact , it still stands as one of the smashing scoops in the history of American news media . But it was n’t perceived that way by the world . The Cleveland administration categorically deny the charges and launched a spot campaign to disbelieve and embarrass the newsperson . newspaper denounce Edwards as a “ disgrace to news media ” and a “ calamity liar . ” The tactics were effective . The public side with Cleveland , who ’d built his reputation as the “ Honest President . ” Meanwhile , Edwards ’ calling was effectively ruin . For the next 15 year , the veteran newsperson could barely discover work . In 1909 , he landed a job as a editorialist for a struggle untested newspaper calledThe Wall Street Journal . But Edwards ’ career was still tainted by the allegation that he ’d fake the story about Grover Cleveland .
One of the doctors who performed the operating theatre , W.W. Keen , always regretted how Edwards had been so unjustly traduce . In 1917 , a quarter - century after the cognitive operation and a ten after Cleveland ’s demise , Keen finally adjudicate to do something about it . He published a confessional inThe Saturday Evening Post , hoping to “ vindicate Mr. Edwards ’ character as a truthful correspondent . ” The admission was successful . The honest-to-god newspaperman was inundated with congratulatory alphabetic character and telegrams , and the flood deeply incite him . Edwards even write to Keen to thank him for fix his report .
Executive Disorders
Grover Cleveland was barely the only chairwoman to conceal a major aesculapian crisis from the public . On October 2 , 1919 , Woodrow Wilson stomach a massive stroke that paralyzed the left over side of his soundbox and incapacitated him so all — physically and mentally — that , in the words of one historian , “ The United States President should have resigned immediately . ” Instead , the White House physician , Dr. Cary Grayson , declare that President Wilson was merely suffering from “ nervous exhaustion . ”
Wilson ’s successor , Warren Harding , was n’t precisely the characterisation of health , either . His heart was so sapless that he had to sleep shore up up with pillow . If he slept lie down , blood would pool in his lung , arrive at it difficult for him to breathe . On July 27 , 1923 , Harding suffered what was almost certainly a heart plan of attack , but his doctor — a homeopath who care to prescribe pills by color ( pink was a favorite)—insisted it was merely food poisoning . Harding drop dead in situation six days subsequently .
In the early 1960s , John F. Kennedy concealed the fact that he support from a enfeeble circumstance called Addison ’s disease during his presidency . And more recently , Ronald Reagan ’s staff continue up the fact that the president showed sign of dementedness in the White House . Of course , on the order of presidential secrets , it ’s unmanageable to sleep together what ’s more disturbing : the cover - ups that go on inside the Oval Office , or the ones that originate in the doctor ’s office .
