• U.S.

THE PRESIDENCY: Progress

4 minute read
TIME

About the health of the President of the U.S., Dr. Paul Dudley White, the heart specialist, was optimistic. He had studied the clinical reports from last fortnight’s searching party at Walter Reed Hospital, conferred with his physician colleagues on the case. Last week at Gettysburg he made his own extensive examination, and, as has become his custom, made a report of his findings to the U.S.

The President’s heart attack, he said, was not caused by the stresses and pressures of the presidency; the President, like most of Dr. White’s 12,000 other heart patients, was not likely to suffer a second attack. The President would be able to assume a much heavier work load starting around Jan. 9, after a two-week trip to the South for an easy return to normal exercise. The big political question of whether Dwight Eisenhower would be fit enough to seek a second term, Dr. White implied, could be answered in mid-February, after his next and probably final examination. “He was out of danger from this last attack within a few weeks,” White concluded. The report:

How Is He? “His general health is good. He has no symptoms in any way pertaining to his heart—that is, he has no pain, no shortness of breath. There was a comment made about fatigue a week ago, which was not due to his heart but which may be attributed to fatigue such as anyone may feel. If any of you work quite hard with a long conference, you may get tired. It’s a nervous symptom, as I view it, in all probability.”

The Tests. “The physical examination has been good right along—blood pressure, pulse rate and so on have been all right. The laboratory tests have also been encouraging. By laboratory tests, we mean the blood testing and the electrocardiogram—which, although fairly well stabilized, has actually improved in the last few weeks. And we are encouraged about that. The X-ray studies made a week ago are also encouraging. He stood the strain of the last six weeks very well, as shown by the fact that the heart size has not increased in these weeks.”

The Work Load. “In summary, the progress to date has been excellent and encouraging, but he has not yet been subjected to his full load of work. Four or five weeks of exposure to that should suffice for a medical estimate as to the ability of his heart to stand the work. If, for example, he should resume pretty much his full job in the second week— I think about the 9th of January—four or five weeks added on to that date would be the time that we doctors would think desirable for that more or less final test. And that date would bring us to about the middle of February. But we want him to get some exercise before that, and since the weather may continue to be cold here, it is thought that he might find a visit to the South helpful from that standpoint. He could have, say, a fortnight right after Christmas.”

Can He Run Again? “The future rests in the lap of the gods, as it more or less does with all of us in this room. With average luck and common-sense care, it is possible for the President to live for years and be fully active—as have many others among my own patients who have recovered similarly. But since none of these other patients of mine with coronary thrombosis have been Presidents of the U.S.A., I cannot speak with experience on that point.

“We doctors can only advise the President medically. He must make his own decision. I voted for him before and I will vote for him again, I think—not because I am a Republican; because I am independent.

“What is our advice? First, steadily increasing activity, both physical and mental, up to his full job, which I hope in some way for all future Presidents may be at least somewhat lightened. This is the treatment advised.”

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