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Gencor · (This post was last modified: 07-17-2016 12:17 AM by Gencor.)

(07-11-2016 09:46 AM)Gene C Wrote: I'm just guessing, but I'll say the one on the left is not Mary.
The nose is similar, but the eyes, the chin, and lines around the mouth don't seem to match.

I don't think that it is Mary either. It would be startling to think that her facial features would have changed that much so quickly and the picture really doesn't resemble her.

(07-16-2016 04:29 PM)RJNorton Wrote:
(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.

I have mentioned this here before, but when I was in school, I remember when we were studying Lincoln that the nuns told us that Mary Lincoln died of Syphilis. Until I came here, I didn't know any different. In all of mu studies of Kate Chase, I always just thought of Mrs. Lincoln as a very smart woman but a woman with a terrible sadness about her who was plagued by depression. Of course, when I read about this diagnosis today, I was intrigued.

(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/

I believe that there couldn't have been an autopsy, or if there was one, it disappeared before it was ever made public. The reason I believe this, is because if there was an autopsy, there would not have been all of these years of speculation about what she died of. We would have it confirmed and know for sure. Her cause of death, if anyone really knew back then, would be recorded in history as fact. We would not be speculating and guessing, even today, if there was a true record of the cause of death.

(07-12-2016 09:45 AM)Gene C Wrote: I don't know either, but if it's not Mary, who could it be?
A chaperone (or mother) to one or more of the young ladies in the photo?
Wife of some one from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, accompanying the Indians in the photo?
Some one Nicolay invited in at the last minute?

Is that Kate Chase to the immediate left of Nicolay? (his right)

Gene, when I saw the photo, I wondered the same thing. Its the slight tilt of the head, if you notice. That is her trademark. I don't think that we can know for sure but it does resemble her and that slight tilt just made me wonder if it is her in the photograph.