Sic semper carcenomas..
Posted on 11/26/2007 6:12:47 PM PST by Huntress
Abraham Lincoln was the rarest of men, and John G. Sotos believes that extended all the way to his chromosome 10.
A physician, connoisseur of rare ailments and amateur historian, Sotos believes Lincoln had a genetic syndrome called MEN 2B. He thinks the diagnosis not only accounts for Lincoln’s great height, which has been the subject of most medical speculation over the years, but also for many of the president’s other reported ailments and behaviors.
He also suspects Lincoln was dying of cancer at the time he was assassinated, and was unlikely to have survived a year. He thinks cancer -- an inevitable element of MEN 2B -- killed at least one of Lincoln’s four sons, three of whom died before reaching age 20.
Sotos’s theory assigns one of medicine’s rarest conditions to one of the nation’s best-known figures. It is likely to be controversial. But unlike many historical diagnoses, it can be easily proved or rejected with a DNA test for the single mutation in the gene called RET on chromosome 10 that causes MEN 2B.
Samples of the martyred president’s DNA presumably exist in bloodstained fabrics scattered around the country and in eight skull fragments from Lincoln’s autopsy in the possession of the federal government. Whether anyone will be willing to sacrifice part of a relic to answer this question is another issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Sic semper carcenomas..
Now you’ve gone and done it. Pretty soon we’ll be up to our butts in FReepers re-fighting the Civil War again.
(Sorta sarcasm. Just sorta....)
There are several tangible benefits to knowing Lincoln’s health before he died. To start with, health affects the mind as well as the body, and may have colored many of Lincoln’s actions and decisions.
It has been said that the only fate worse than Lincoln to the South was his untimely death, leaving them in the hands of radical Republicans in Congress, who then inflicted the South with Reconstruction. Had he lived to the end of his term, that fate may have been eased considerably.
But had cancer taken him within a year, it could have been the same, better, or perhaps even worse for the South. He would likely not have died quickly, and been debilitated for months before he died.
Factoring into this as well, was the second and third most powerful men in Washington, D.C., William H. Seward, the Secretary of State, and Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War.
Seward was one of the most influential proponents of westward expansion, and Stanton’s conflict with President Andrew Johnson resulted in the first Presidential impeachment.
All too soon, the Union Army was needed to frighten the French into leaving occupied Mexico, and the Indian Wars in the West were to begin.
Any of these events and people could have been profoundly affected by the health of Abraham Lincoln. And US history could have been profoundly different.
Our military are the ones saying this. So I’d bank it.
Yeah! Like Reagan he hardly ever talked about AIDS. Therefore he's obviously responsible for anal sex in bathhouses, just like Reagan.
I seem to remember something about a smoking gun :-}
Ha! You didn’t go far enough. The truthers say that Lincoln secretly enlisted JWB to murder him.
Lincoln did not have Marfan syndrome. People with Marfan have long thin fingers and tend to be weaker than normal. Lincoln displayed great strength, for example in wood-chopping demonstrations, and once during the Civil War, when he held a very heavy ax at arms length by the end of the handle. Also casts of Lincoln’s hands survive, which show his hands to be very strong and not like those of someone with Marfan syndrome.
Lincoln was also know to be an accomplished wrestler in his youth. It is very unlikely someone with Marfan’s would excel at wrestling.
Marfan’s is what I always thought Lincoln had. Accounted for the gaunt look and gangliness.
There was black powder involved, so you are Shirley Wright.
My friends daughter with Marfans was born with webbed fingers and toes and she is recovering from heart transplant surgery. I have only seen the girl once but her face and neck are very strange, like she has too many tendons connecting them. She has had dozens of surgeries to correct problems with the connective tissue all over her body.
Whatever disease Lincoln did or did not have it did not affect his mind. Whether you agree with his decisions and politics or not, Lincoln was an extremely intelligent man and a very clever politician.
Of Lincoln's four sons, only Robert lived to maturity, so any descendants would have to trace their lineage back to him. In 1868 Robert married Mary Harlan and they had three children: Jessie, Abraham (known as Jack), and Mary. Abraham died at the age of 17, before marrying. Mary married Charles B. Isham and bore him one son, Lincoln Isham, who married Leahalma Correa. That marriage was childless, leaving it up to Jessie to continue the Lincoln family line. She eloped to marry Warren W. Beckwith, with whom she had two children, Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Lincoln Beckwith, before divorcing in 1907.
In 1915 Jessie remarried, to explorer Frank E. Johnson. That marriage, childless, also resulted in divorce in 1925. Undaunted, Jessie then married for a third time, this time to Robert J. Randolph, in 1926. That marriage produced no offspring.
Mary Lincoln Beckwith, great-granddaughter of President Lincoln, never married. Her brother, Robert Lincoln Beckwith, married twice, to Hazel Holland Wilson and Annemarie Hoffman. He never had any children, and when he died in 1985 the Lincoln line ended. There are no direct living descendants of Abraham Lincoln.
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