Note on President's Health

Note on President's Health

Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938

WWP15967

1919 October 11

Note by Cary T. Grayson about President Woodrow Wilson’s health and sense of humor following his stroke.

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

English

ADMIRAL GRAYSON.

On October 11th the President was extremely ill and weak and even to speak was an exertion. He had difficulty in swallowing. He was being given liquid nourishment and frequently it took a good deal of persuasion to get him to take even this simple diet. On the day in question Mrs. Wilson and I were begging him to take this nourishment, and, after taking a number of mouthfuls given to him by Mrs. Wilson with a sppoon, he held up one finger and motioned me to come nearer. He said to me in a whisper: “Doctor, I must repeat to you this limerick:

A wonderful birsd is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his bellican,
He can take in his beak enough food for a week,
I wonder how in the hell-he-can. 

The President did not have a shave from October 2d until November 12th and his beard had grown to a considerable length. Just before he was shaved he called for a mirror to take a final look at himself before parting with his beard. He looked at himself He examined himself very carefully in the mirror, turning his head from side to side, in order to and then he turned to me and said:

“Doctor, For beauty I am not a star, There are others more handsome by far, But my face I don’t mind it For I am behind it, It’s the folks in front that I jar.”

On another occasion I wanted to examine the pupils of his eyes, and he amusingly said, in a whisper: “What are you up to now, Doctor.” I said: “I simply want to examine your pupils.” (I was making the examination with a small electric light). He said: “You have a large job on your hands, because I have had a great many in my day.”

On still another occasion I brought in Admiral Stitt, who is a specialist in bacteriology and blood examinations. The President wanted to know what I proposed to have Dr. Stitt do. I said: “I want him to get a sample of your blood for examination.” The President rolled his eyes to one side, and looking up at me, said: “If you are looking for blood, send him down to the Capitol.”

At one time Dr. Young was in consultation in the President’s room, and I remarked to him: “Don’t you think the President would feel more comfortable if he had his beard cut off.” Dr. Young replied: “I should think that he would feel better without the beard.” Dr. Young said: “Grayson, couldn’t you shave him? You know, in the olden days the doctors were barbers.” And he went on to say that the colors, red and white, on the barber’s sign represented the red blood on the white skin. And, he added: “And doctors were really barbers in those days.” The President, looking up at us, said: “And they are barberous yet.”

I took his temperature with a thermometer, and I said to him, after taking it: “Your temperature is normal.” He said: “If you keep me in this bed much longer, my temper will not be normal.” This was published in the newspapers next day, and when his cousin, John A. Wilson, of Franklin, Pennsylvania, read this in the cloud, he shouted out to the men there: “RThe President is all right. Nobody ever could have invented that saying, because those who have know him all his life know he that is just exactly the way he talks.”

I was percussing him one day. This is simply the doctor’s phrase for tapping over the area of an organ to determine whether it is distended, contracted or displaced. While I was undergoing this procedure, he said: “Why knock; I am home.”

On one occasion Secretary Tumulty came in to see the President, and as he was leaving, the President said: “Why leave now?” Mr. Tumulty said: “I must go to see the King of Belgium.” The President said: “You are wrong; you should say ‘The King of the Belgians’. Mr. Tumulty said: “I accept the interpretation.” The President said: “It is not an interpretation but a reservation.”