Extra Credit Questions

[L Verge]

Another wild stab -- is the man a barber instead of a doctor? Did El Presidente go to a downtown barber instead of having one come to the White House?

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In cheating to try and find an answer, I ran across this little tidbit of interest:

Another contemporary recalled a prescription given Mr. Lincoln after the Quincy debate with Senator Stephen A. Douglas in October 1858. “I tell you, I’m might nigh petered out; I reckon I’ll have to quit and give up the race,” Mr. Lincoln said. George P. Floyd recalled that his wife suggested a “rum sweat” to which Mr. Lincoln projected “Why, I never drank a drop of liquor in my life.” She explained that it was “an external treatment so Mr. Lincoln agreed to submit: “Well, if you think it will do me any good, just crack your whip and go ahead. Any port in a storm, and, I tell you, I am mighty near overboard.”

As Floyd described it: “The treatment was administered as directed by my wife. A pan of New England rum was placed under a cane-seated chair. The patient was stripped, seated in the chair, and covered all over with blankets. Then the rum was set afire. The fumes or vapor of the rum caused profuse perspiration, after which the patient was put to bed, covered with woolen blankets, and given a decoction of hot ginger tea. The sweating continued.” The treatment apparently worked. The next morning, Mr. Lincoln proclaimed: “Why, I am feeling like a two-year-old. I can jump a five-rail fence right now, I swanny! I’ve heard folks drinking liquor, and rubbing their bodies with the bottle for ailments, but I never yet heard of driving the stuff through the pores of the hide to get a man full. If Mrs. Floyd would only join us in this campaign and prescribe for me, I think we could beat out Judge Douglas slick and clean.” 22 Several years later, Floyd visited the White House and was told by the President: “I believe your wife saved my life when I was at Quincy in 1858. Yes, and I have taken that ‘rum sweat’ that she prescribed for me many times, and I have prescribed it for some of my friends. It has always been a dead shot.” 23

It reminded me of one of my mother's cures when I came down sick with a fever. She would pile blankets on me, make me drink a shot glass of brandy and then follow it with a glass of hot lemonade. It usually worked quickly -- and no, she did not turn me into an alcoholic. Today, Child Services would probably charge her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor or child abuse...