Franklin D. Roosevelt's Paralytic Illness - Timeline and History of Illness

Timeline and History of Illness

In August 1921, at the age of 39, while vacationing at Campobello Island in Canada, Roosevelt contracted an illness characterized by fever; protracted symmetric, ascending paralysis of the upper and lower extremities; facial paralysis; bladder and bowel dysfunction; numbness; and dysesthesia. The symptoms gradually resolved except for paralysis of the lower extremities.

August 9

• Roosevelt fell into the cold waters of the Bay of Fundy while boating.

August 10

• Roosevelt went sailing on the Bay of Fundy with his three oldest children, put out a fire, jogged across Campobello Island, and swam in Lake Glen Severn and the Bay. Afterward, he felt tired, complained of a "slight case of lumbago", and had chills. He retired early. Chills lasted through the night.

August 11

• One leg was weak. By afternoon, it was paralyzed. That evening, the other leg began to weaken. E. H. Bennet, the local family physician, was called that evening and diagnosed a cold.

August 12

• Roosevelt could not stand. He had bilateral paralysis. His legs were numb. He also had painful sensitivity to touch, general aches, and fever of 102°F. He could not pass urine. Bennet reevaluated Roosevelt and suggested a consultation with William W. Keen, an eminent physician vacationing nearby.

August 13

• Roosevelt was paralyzed from the chest down. On that day and following, his hands, arms, and shoulders were weak. He had difficulty moving his bowels and required enemas.

August 14

• Keen diagnosed a clot of blood to the lower spinal cord, prescribed massage of the leg muscles, and predicted a gradual improvement over a period of months. Roosevelt continued to be unable to pass urine for two weeks, and required catheterization. His fever continued for six to seven days.

August 18

• Roosevelt was briefly delirious. Keen reconsidered his diagnosis and now believed that the cause was possibly a lesion in the spinal cord.

August 25

• On examination by physician Robert Lovett, Roosevelt's temperature was 100°F. Both legs were paralyzed. His back muscles were weak. There was also weakness of the face and left hand. Pain in the legs and inability to urinate continued. Lovett and Bennet concluded that the diagnosis was poliomyelitis.

Mid-September

• In mid-September, at New York City Presbyterian Hospital, there was pain in the legs, paralysis of the legs, muscle wasting in the lower lumbar area and the buttocks, weakness of the right triceps, and gross twitching of muscles of both forearms.

Later

• There was gradual recovery from facial paralysis, weakness in upper extremities and trunk, inability to urinate, inability to defecate, dysesthesia in legs, and weakness in lower back and abdomen. But he mostly remained paralyzed from the waist down, and the buttocks were weak.