Mary Lincoln and the American "Sweet Tooth"

[BettyO]

Here's a wonderful site on those delightful "Mary Lincoln" candies - which were supposedly still around in the 1950s! Anyone ever had any? From the drawing alone - they look wonderful - and all for just .70 cents!

   

http://wnyheritagepress.org/photos_week_...andies.htm

[LincolnMan]

Never heard of them until mentioned on this Forum!

[Donna McCreary]

Betty, thanks for the photo! I have not seen that one before. They do look yummy.

[LincolnToddFan]

Some people believe Mary was diabetic. There are existing records for her time in Springfield verifying that she purchased bags of sugar in enormous quantities for her baking and cooking.

[RJNorton]

Some people believe Mary was diabetic.

Dr. Evans, for one, agreed with this. In fact he includes "diabetic coma" as a possible cause of death.

[BettyO]

Thanks for an interesting synopsis. Diabetes was, I'm sure, very prelevant in the Victorian era as it is today. It more likely than not, went undiagnosed and thus untreated. It is also believed that Lew Powell's mother died in the 1870s with the same condition.

Here is an interesting site regarding the disease in the Victorian era:

http://www.victorianweb.org/science/heal...lth12.html

[LincolnToddFan]

Thanks Betty O!

I have a cousin who was diagnosed with juvenile onset diabetes at age 13, and he had to give himself insulin injections several times a day until his death last December at age 46. It's a merciless disease. You can go into coma at any time.

I can not imagine how sufferers in the 19th century coped. If Mary did indeed suffer from this illness(in addition to her well documented emotional problems) it explains a lot. The horrific headaches, the mood swings, the problems with her vision, the incontinence, also the considerable weight loss in her final months. She weighed barely 100 pounds and had to remove her wedding band because it kept sliding off her finger.

Poor Mary.

[BettyO]

It does indeed seem that Mrs. Lincoln had diabetes. My dad died with it - it's a merciless disease which, fortunately today, can be treated successfully. Considering how Americans ate in the Victorian era, I would think that a great bit of the population in the entire country suffered with diabetes.

[LincolnToddFan]

That's right Betty...a very starchy, carbohydrate rich diet was the norm for 19th century Americans.

[Eva Elisabeth]

I have a cousin you was diagnosed with juvenile onset diabetes at age 13, and he had to give himself insulin injections several times a day until his death last December at age 46. It's a merciless disease. You can go into coma at any time.

I agree it's likely that Mary had developed diabetes (type II) and this, since untreated, had its share in her death or maybe caused it.

Toia, (I know I will regret this post) you cannot compare diabetes type I (juvenile diabetes) & II.

Diabetes I is an autoimmune disease, resulting from self-destruction of the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. The cause for this disiase is still unknown, it is not a lifestyle disease, and this disease requires way more management efforts, restrictions and planning in everyday life, and mostly it still causes increasingly more damage over the time. Contrary to type II, diabetes I always requires use of insulin, in case of mismanagement you easily can go into coma, and untreated it commonly leads to fatal coma.

Usually nowadays you wouldn't go into coma due to diabetes II. Diabetes II is, though a certain genetic disposition increases the risk to develop it, entirely a lifestyle disease, caused by obesity, diet, and lack of physical exercise (leading to a relative lack of insulin and/or insulin resistance). Nowadays, if treated, including a change in lifestyle, it is by no means as "merciless", severe and serious as diabetes I. Of cause, Mary didn't know what her weight and (probably) surgary diet could cause (and most likely did cause), plus her physical labor in later years was most likely very little.

[LincolnToddFan]

Thanks much, Eva E. I did read somewhere that Type I can be more severe and difficult to treat. My cousin was a seemingly healthy, active normal boy of 13, skinny as a rail but he loved to eat. One morning almost without warning he became groggy and passed out at the breakfast table in front of his entire family. He spent almost a week in a coma and nearly died. It was so horrible, his mother was shattered. But unfortunately diabetes is a risk on my maternal side of the family.

My cousin's kidneys eventually failed completely and he was on dialysis when he died in December. Poor Christopher!

I am sure that if Mrs Lincoln had it, it was Type II.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Definitely - there's no way she suffered form type I diabetes. This always begins before adulthood, and would have been fatal at early age without taking insulin, thus in those days. The beginning you describe ("my cousin was a seemingly healthy, active normal boy of 13, skinny as a rail but he loved to eat. One morning almost without warning he became groggy and passed out at the breakfast table in front of his entire family") is 100% typical, though not each case comes to such an ending at that age. I'm sorry to learn what you and yours went through, Toia!

[RJNorton]

It was Dr. Evans' opinion that Mary's diabetes probably began in the 1870's - "perhaps after 1875."

[LincolnToddFan]

Definitely - there's no way she suffered form type I diabetes. This always begins before adulthood, and would have been fatal at early age without taking insulin, thus in those days. The beginning you describe ("my cousin was a seemingly healthy, active normal boy of 13, skinny as a rail but he loved to eat. One morning almost without warning he became groggy and passed out at the breakfast table in front of his entire family") is 100% typical, though not each case comes to such an ending at that age. I'm sorry to learn what you and yours went through, Toia!

Thanks Eva,

Chris actually lived with his disease for over 30 years before succumbing to complications of it shortly before Christmas last year. He was incredibly brave, and he never complained. When we were kids I used to look at all the needles he used to inject himself with his daily insulin and I would shudder with horror. I simply could not imagine living like that, then or now.

BTW...when I used the word "merciless" to describe diabetes I was referring to how it operates if left untreated, like in Mary Lincoln's case. The final years and months of her life sound like torture and the poor woman had no idea why she was going blind-she thought she had gone blind from weeping so much apparently- on top of the bladder problems. So sad!