Medicine: A President's Grief

"When he went, the power and the glory of the presidency went with him," wrote Calvin Coolidge of the death, at 16, of his namesake son. Young Calvin blistered his heel playing tennis on the White House courts, died of what was then called "blood poisoning" in July 1924. Last week in the Bulletin of Temple University Medical Center, Philadelphia's Dr. John Albert Kolmer,* who was called to the White House as a consultant in young Coolidge's case, added a graphic footnote to the story of the death:

"About two hours before death it was decided to administer oxygen. The wrong...

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