CAMILLE BOHANNON
On August 10, 1921, after a day of strenuous activity, 39-year-old
Franklin D.Roosevelt came down with an illness characterized by
fevers, ascending paralysis, facial paralysis, prolonged bowel
and bladder dysfunction, and numbness and hypersensitivity
of the skin. Roosevelt came close to death from the illness.
He faced many life-threatening medical problems including the possibility of respiratory failure, urinary tract infection, injury to
the urethra or bladder, decubitus ulcers, clots in the leg veins,
and malnutrition. Eleanor’s nursing care was responsible for
Roosevelt’s survival.
Most of the symptoms resolved themselves, but he was left
permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Lieutenant Governor George Lunn, FDR, John W. Davis, and
Al Smith at Roosevelt’s family home in Hyde Park, New York. FDR is supporting himself on crutches. August 7, 1924.
FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt at their home in Hyde Park,
New York during the annual pilgrimage of the Dutchess
County Historical Society. September 16, 1927.
