lincoln in springfield

[LincolnToddFan]

(03-30-2015 03:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-29-2015 04:26 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I remember reading it here, Roger:
http://www.lincolnportrait.com/emotional...lopia.html
"The earliest evidence of Lincoln's visual decoordination has been recorded by Shastid,{23} as told to him by his father, Dr. Shastid, an oculist who practiced in Pittsfield, Ill. The elder Dr. Shastid, when a boy, lived in New Salem and knew Abe Lincoln, then in his mid-twenties, as the storekeeper and postmaster of the town...Shastid noticed that Lincoln's left eye looked queer at times and would suddenly get crossed and turn upward.
Some 20 years later, when a physician and oculist, Shastid saw Lincoln in several debates with Douglas and in several trials in court as a lawyer. He then recognized the ocular condition as hyperphoria from a certain weakness of the muscles of the left eye, which continuously caused the eyeball to turn upward. Upon excitement this condition would suddenly increase and produce a severe cross-eyed effect. Dr. Shastid suggested that the hyperphoria caused intense eyestrain and uneasiness and was at least partly the cause of Lincoln's moodiness or 'chronic inexpressible blues.' He thought that Lincoln possibly was also color-blind, for Lincoln once said to his (Shastid’s) mother, when she showed him her flower garden, that flowers and sunsets had no beauty for him, as they did for other people."

Eva, thank you for posting that! I am sure the book I read long ago said the same. Today I will check Dr. John Sotos' The Physical Lincoln and see what he has to say about Lincoln's eyesight/possible color blindness. I know the condition is more common in men than women.

Roger I remember reading-I think it was Katherine Helm's biography? Where AL complimented his wife on the color of her dress because it looked like the blue of her eyes, and Mary joked that her efforts to teach her husband the difference in colors was finally bearing fruit. I believe her younger sister Emilie Helm was staying with them in Springfield at the time. Do you recall the incident in your reading?

Anyway if AL did indeed have some form of color-blindness, Mary's comment makes sense.

Also, Robert Todd Lincoln was afflicted with strabismus(cross eyes) in childhood, so he must have inherited the condition from his father.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Toia - Emilie Todd Helm recalled that Elizabeth Todd Edwards “had invited all of us to a supper party. Sister Mary had just finished a new dress, it was a white silk with blue brocaded flowers scattered over it in bunches and little garlands. When Mr. Lincoln came from his office Mary reminded him it was time to change for the party. He looked at her with a smile. ‘Fine feathers enough on you to make fine birds of both of us.’ Noticing her dress still further, he said, ‘Those posies on your dress are the color of your eyes.’ Mary dimpled with pleasure: ‘You see, Emilie, I am training my husband to see color. I do not think he knew pink from blue when I married him.’”
(Katherine Helm: "Mary Wife of Lincoln," pp. 108-111.)

[RJNorton]

Toia and Eva, kudos on your memories and with helping me kick-start mine. That's it!! Many thanks to both of you.

I did check Dr. Sotos' book yesterday, and unless I missed it, he does not mention color blindness (although several pages are indeed devoted to Lincoln's eyes/eyesight).

[LincolnToddFan]

THAT'S it Eva....thank you!!!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Just to add re: "Robert Todd Lincoln was afflicted with strabismus(cross eyes) in childhood, so he must have inherited the condition from his father" -

Strabismus can cause diplopia, and thus perhaps the following occurence:

On June 8,1864, the day of his renomination, A. L. allegedly told Carpenter and Hay:

" A very singular occurrence took place the day I was nominated at Chicago, four years ago, of which I am reminded to-night. In the afternoon of the day, return ing home from down town, I went upstairs to Mrs. Lincoln's reading-room. Feeling somewhat tired, I lay down upon a couch in the room, directly opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. As I reclined, my eyes fell upon the glass, and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. I arose and lay down with the same result. It made me feel quite uncomfortable for a few minutes, but, some friends coming in, the matter passed from my mind. The next day while walking the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it. I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and, if the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the natural result of some refraction or optics, which I did not understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment with the same result; and, as I had said to myself, accounted for it on some principle unknown to me, and it ceased to trouble me. But the God who works through the laws of Nature might surely give a sign to me, if one of his chosen servants, even through the operation of a principle in optics."

The Fehrenbachers give it a "C", however (please go to the next page on the link for the comments!)
https://books.google.de/books?id=L1FyFWc...CBcQ6AEwBQ

[RJNorton]

Eva, regarding this episode, Dr. Sotos writes (in The Physical Lincoln):

"With the eyes so markedly misaligned, each eye would generate an image significantly different from its partner's. Normally the brain fuses the eyes' different images into one, but in this case the difference was probably too great to do so. As a result Lincoln saw two images.

It is unclear why Lincoln experienced double vision on just these few occasions. His tiredness may have contributed: perhaps his brain found it too trying to fuse the different images from the eyes on that day.

In technical terms, Lincoln had an intermittent vertical hypertropia of the left eye, which is a type of strabismus. His head tilt is known as a Bielschowsky tilt."

[LincolnToddFan]

(03-31-2015 01:48 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Just to add re: "Robert Todd Lincoln was afflicted with strabismus(cross eyes) in childhood, so he must have inherited the condition from his father" -

Strabismus can cause diplopia, and thus perhaps the following occurence:

On June 8,1864, the day of his renomination, A. L. allegedly told Carpenter and Hay:

" A very singular occurrence took place the day I was nominated at Chicago, four years ago, of which I am reminded to-night. In the afternoon of the day, return ing home from down town, I went upstairs to Mrs. Lincoln's reading-room. Feeling somewhat tired, I lay down upon a couch in the room, directly opposite a bureau, upon which was a looking-glass. As I reclined, my eyes fell upon the glass, and I saw distinctly two images of myself, exactly alike, except that one was a little paler than the other. I arose and lay down with the same result. It made me feel quite uncomfortable for a few minutes, but, some friends coming in, the matter passed from my mind. The next day while walking the street, I was suddenly reminded of the circumstance, and the disagreeable sensation produced by it returned. I had never seen anything of the kind before, and did not know what to make of it. I determined to go home and place myself in the same position, and, if the same effect was produced, I would make up my mind that it was the natural result of some refraction or optics, which I did not understand, and dismiss it. I tried the experiment with the same result; and, as I had said to myself, accounted for it on some principle unknown to me, and it ceased to trouble me. But the God who works through the laws of Nature might surely give a sign to me, if one of his chosen servants, even through the operation of a principle in optics."

The Fehrenbachers give it a "C", however (please go to the next page on the link for the comments!)
https://books.google.de/books?id=L1FyFWc...CBcQ6AEwBQ

This incident is one of the many haunting ones in AL's life. In some versions of the story he called Mary into the room and she saw the same thing. They believed that it meant he would not complete a second term.