Mary Todd Lincoln's Cell

[Susan Higginbotham]

(07-05-2015 04:48 PM)Houmes Wrote:  

(07-04-2015 04:56 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  As for the drugs at Bellevue, from J. Baker's bio:
"...under his [Dr. Patterson] orders the staff dispensed large doses of opium, morphine, cannabis indica, belladonna, ergot, conium, and Bellevue's notorious whiskey-laced eggnog. In the early 1870s he had begun using chloral hydrate."
A few months before Mary arrived, Dr. Patterson had delivered a lethal amount of chloral hydrate to one of his patients. And he characterized insanity as "a chronic disease of the brain which produces derangement of the intellectual faculties and prolonged changes of feelings, affections and habits."

The problem I have with Dr. Baker is her book reads more like an agenda than a biography. She never defines the exact drug regimen Dr. Patterson prescribed Mrs. Lincoln, yet lists (and can be inferred) that if he was dispensing all kinds of other drugs to patients, he must have similarly prescribed them to her. I believe a more balanced account is found in the books of Neely and McMurty, and Jason Emerson. The actual medical records Dr. Patterson kept have never been found; his grandson was my next door neighbor for several years. Like much of Lincoln's life and death (along that of family members), people too often ascribe today's manners, customs, and medical treatment as a standard rather than what was reality back then for the Lincolns.

I agree. Dr. Patterson's drug regime actually seems rather conventional for the time.

Jason Emerson in his book notes that the "notorious whiskey-laced eggnog" of which Baker writes was dispensed to underweight patients. As far as MTL's own medication goes, her letters from the asylum certainly don't sound like the product of someone whose mind was fogged by drugs, and I would think that Myra Pritchard would have mentioned it if she believed that Mary was being overmedicated.