I'm reading Demon of Unrest, by Erik Larsen, about the events leading up to the Civil War, and I think I just read about a case of TMS.
William Seward had just started as Secretary of State for Lincoln and they had just gotten through the Inauguration, which the whole country was in a panic about. According to this book, he thought of himself as the wise one and responsible for keeping the country together and out of war. He had run against Lincoln for the presidential nomination and lost.
On March 9, a few days later, he was "detained from the Department by physical disability." He appeared to be suffering from "a sever attack of lumbago," according to a contemporary's account.
"Although a century later lumbago would be rendered a comical term, in 1861 it was a diagnosis for disabling back pain believed to arise from any number of potential causes, among them gout, tuberculosis, tumors, intestinal inflammation, even syphilis."
Sound familiar?
William Seward had just started as Secretary of State for Lincoln and they had just gotten through the Inauguration, which the whole country was in a panic about. According to this book, he thought of himself as the wise one and responsible for keeping the country together and out of war. He had run against Lincoln for the presidential nomination and lost.
On March 9, a few days later, he was "detained from the Department by physical disability." He appeared to be suffering from "a sever attack of lumbago," according to a contemporary's account.
"Although a century later lumbago would be rendered a comical term, in 1861 it was a diagnosis for disabling back pain believed to arise from any number of potential causes, among them gout, tuberculosis, tumors, intestinal inflammation, even syphilis."
Sound familiar?
