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Today the author of The Physical Lincoln, Dr. John Sotos, was supposed to speak before our Civil War Round Table. Illustrations were crucial to his talk as he intended to show medical evidence that Lincoln. Back in 1996, some medical professionals determined that Lincoln had Marfan syndrome. Marfan can either affect the bone or the connective tissue. There are thirty characteristics that may manifest itself in Marfan. Dr. Sotos does not agree. Instead he asserts that Lincoln had MEN2B (multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B). It's a cancer.
Dr. Sotos couldn't give his talk and gave us the five minute version without the evidence or details. I was lucky enough to be seated next to him and we got along quite well because of his destroyer pin on his tie. His father was a DE sailor in WW II. Luckily they were out hunting first German subs and then Japanese subs and were never on picket duty looking out for kamikazes. Anyhow, I asked him how long Lincoln would have lived if he wasn't shot by Boothe. Without even pausing, he told me that Lincoln would have been dead within a year! His war weariness wasn't stress from the war but degeneration because of MEN2B.
He has a short paperback on the subject. I bought the bigger book which has the paperback material plus all his notes. His research methodology was similar to my own (which is why I bought it). He pored over every bibliography on Abe and every original source to find that one comment that someone made about Lincoln's physical characteristic or appearance. For instance, "Was a fast eater, though not a very hearty one," or "Lincoln was a vegetable - His skin performed what other organs did for the [sic] He was sluggish - apathetic," or "He was never handsome, indeed, but he grew more and more cadaverous and ungainly month by month." There are hundreds if not thousands of like statements or observations that have been collected and categorized by Dr. Sotos. To we non-medicos, these obscure statements are easily overlooked and may not mean much, but taken cumulatively and in conjunction with examination of photographs, the death masks, casts of his hands and drawings, they provide a wealth of information that Dr. Sotos interprets to provide a fresh perspective on Lincoln. If you learn nothing else from the bigger book, it may be a way of organizing your research for analysis. Read the little paperback if you don't have the and want to get to the heart of his discussion.
We're planning for Dr. Sotos to return with a working projector at some future date.
Dr. Sotos couldn't give his talk and gave us the five minute version without the evidence or details. I was lucky enough to be seated next to him and we got along quite well because of his destroyer pin on his tie. His father was a DE sailor in WW II. Luckily they were out hunting first German subs and then Japanese subs and were never on picket duty looking out for kamikazes. Anyhow, I asked him how long Lincoln would have lived if he wasn't shot by Boothe. Without even pausing, he told me that Lincoln would have been dead within a year! His war weariness wasn't stress from the war but degeneration because of MEN2B.
He has a short paperback on the subject. I bought the bigger book which has the paperback material plus all his notes. His research methodology was similar to my own (which is why I bought it). He pored over every bibliography on Abe and every original source to find that one comment that someone made about Lincoln's physical characteristic or appearance. For instance, "Was a fast eater, though not a very hearty one," or "Lincoln was a vegetable - His skin performed what other organs did for the [sic] He was sluggish - apathetic," or "He was never handsome, indeed, but he grew more and more cadaverous and ungainly month by month." There are hundreds if not thousands of like statements or observations that have been collected and categorized by Dr. Sotos. To we non-medicos, these obscure statements are easily overlooked and may not mean much, but taken cumulatively and in conjunction with examination of photographs, the death masks, casts of his hands and drawings, they provide a wealth of information that Dr. Sotos interprets to provide a fresh perspective on Lincoln. If you learn nothing else from the bigger book, it may be a way of organizing your research for analysis. Read the little paperback if you don't have the and want to get to the heart of his discussion.
We're planning for Dr. Sotos to return with a working projector at some future date.
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