Lincoln came near death from smallpox: researchers

HOUSTON, May 17 (Reuters Life!) - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln may have come closer than previously realized to dying from smallpox shortly after delivering his Gettysburg Address, medical researchers said on Thursday.

After giving the Civil War speech, Lincoln became ill with symptoms of smallpox: high fever, weakness, severe pain in the head and back, "prostration" -- an old-fashioned word for extreme fatigue -- and skin eruptions that lasted for three weeks in late 1863.

Lincoln's doctors told the ailing president he suffered from a cold or a "bilious fever" before one physician told him he had a mild form of smallpox.

"Lincoln's physicians attempted to reassure him that his disease was a mild form of smallpox, but that may have been to prevent the public from fearing that Lincoln was dying," said Dr. Armond Goldman, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Smallpox, which was eradicated in 1979, was widespread in the 1800s and killed 30 percent of first-time victims.

There was a very crude vaccine, but few people were immunized in the 19th century. Those who were immunized could become infected, but with a mild form of the disease. Historians had assumed that Lincoln had this mild form and had been immunized.

But Goldman and co-researcher Frank Schmalstieg studied descriptions of Lincoln's symptoms. It appears he had the more severe infection that suggests he had not been immunized, they reported in the Journal of Medical Biography.

"His death due to smallpox would have undoubtedly changed the subsequent history of the country," Goldman said in a statement.

"At the least, the goals that were attained during the rest of Lincoln's presidency would have been obtained less rapidly and perhaps less completely."

Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address on the site of a Pennsylvania battlefield in November 1863. In 1864, under Lincoln's leadership, U.S. armies began decisive campaigns against Confederate forces leading to the collapse of the rebellion by southern states in spring 1865.

Lincoln came near death from smallpox: researchers - Yahoo! News

Andrew Jackson would had taken over and stopped the War and surrender to the south.And Andrew Jackson would have negotated with General lee That North Carrolina,Tennesee,Arkansas and Texas and states futher down would belong to the Conferate States of America. Thats why GOD allow lincoin to live so that wouldnt happend.

If Lincoln had been alive in 1963, I doubt it would have made much of a difference.

__________________
"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Perhaps he could have prevented the assassination of JFK?

Thats right,,Cause its the South who voted JFK into office.

And Get this,,The CSA would eventuly invaded mexico around 1870 and turn mexicans into slaves and made cigars and cotton to be sold around the world.

CSA would have been another Haiti, if it had lasted over a decade, which I doubt.

Nope i think CSA would have became the first industral nation around 1880s

... The FIRST industrial nation?

__________________
"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Yeah, that's a problem since the industrial revolution happened prior to the Civil War. (Railroads, factories, mass production, coal-power, ect...)

Personally, I suspect that the CSA would have eventually disolved as its various states found cause to cecede from the Confederacy after the war was over and internal bickering began. The independent states would fall behind their Northern cousins and be in painful competition with one another. Who knows, some of them might have eventually re-applied for membership in the US. But of course I'm just guessing.

Holy shit. Steveox, some of your posts in this thread are fucked up even by your standards.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Lincoln? Which one do you mean, the tunnel guy or the one with the car?

Yep, that may have happened. Some states only wanted to pay for equipping their own soldiers. NC had good textiles, but only wanted to clothe NC troops. Jeff Davis said that bickering like that would cause the CSA to have "died of a theory".