Did Mary Lincoln Suffer from Pernicious Anemia?

[RJNorton]

(07-16-2016 01:57 PM)Houmes Wrote:  

(07-16-2016 12:18 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Back to the original title of this thread: Last week, when the news came out about pernicious anemia possibly being one of Mary Lincoln's affliction, I did a little googling. One of the articles online stated this:

"After Mary died of what was thought to be a stroke on July 16, 1882, an autopsy revealed a brain tumour. How long it had been there is unknown, but it might have explained her mood swings and eccentricities."

I don't remember ever reading this elsewhere and, so far, have not found another mention online. Is it true? Did anyone even autopsy the body?

http://www.doctorsreview.com/history/nov..._medicine/

There was no autopsy as her physician, Dr T.W. Dresser, would have been in attendance and noted it. In addition, her son Robert T. Lincoln would not have allowed it in view of his obsessive history regarding family privacy. I suspect the myth of Abraham and wife Mary having syphilis started when William Herndon mentioned it when writing a letter to a friend, later published in Emanuel Hertz's book The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (1938). Gore Vidal later explained that his source for both of them being infected was from the Herndon letter. Two reputable sources: W.A. Evans in his book Mrs. Abraham Lincoln: A Study of Her Peronality and her Influence on Lincoln (1932) and N. Hirschhorn in his journal article Mary Lincoln's final illness: a medical and historical reappraisal Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (1999) involved both authors spending a great deal of effort and never finding any evidence of an autopsy, concluding any diagnosis or description was presumed to be supposition.

Thank you, Blaine. For anyone interested, the article Blaine referenced is online here.