By Jared Rhoads
This week marks the 90th anniversary of the sad and untimely death of Calvin Coolidge, Jr., President Calvin Coolidge’s younger son. The general story is well-known: while playing lawn tennis with his brother on the White House grounds, sixteen-year-old Calvin, Jr. developed a blister atop the third toe of his right foot. Before long, the boy began to feel ill and ran a fever. Signs of a blood infection appeared, but despite doctors’ best efforts, young Calvin, Jr. was dead within a week.
The suddenness of this loss causes many to wonder about the medical-historical context of his death.
The microorganism that took the President’s son was Staphylococcus aureus, a relatively common bacterium. On the skin, Staph can lead to minor irritations and infections. In the bloodstream, however, Staph can result in sepsis, a serious condition that can affect the major organs and be potentially fatal.
Deaths from sepsis unfortunately were quite common in Coolidge’s time. Ordinary wounds, accidents, and childbirth were all ways in which bacteria could get into one’s normally sterile blood.[i] Patients presenting with fever, low blood pressure, and an obvious site or cause of infection could be diagnosed with relative ease, but the treatment options available were minimal, and the mortality rates were high. Success with the application of antiseptic chemicals was mixed, with healthy tissue often being damaged in the attempt to control the infection.
The Coolidge case was not the first time that blood infection struck a Presidential family. In 1890, Abraham Lincoln’s only grandson, Abraham “Jack” Lincoln II, also 16 years old, died from a similar blood poisoning after a French surgeon performed a procedure to remove an abscess under his arm.[ii] Nine years before that, President Garfield famously died not from the assassin’s bullet that was lodged in his body, but from the infection that ensued after repeated unsanitary attempts to remove it. Antibiotics could have easily treated the infection that killed Calvin, Jr. But in 1924 Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was still four years away. The realistic clinical use of penicillin to treat such an infection was even further away, as it was not until the early 1940s that the use of penicillin started to become practical, and it was not until the war effort hit its stride that the drug was finally available in adequate quantities. As late as 1940, the entire nationwide stock of penicillin, produced by Merck & Co., had been enough to treat approximately ten patients.[iii]
Hindsight or not, there was little that the Coolidges could have done to save Calvin, Jr. They sought the opinions of multiple doctors, confirmed the diagnosis with numerous laboratory tests, and admitted the boy to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which was one of the best hospitals of the day. As is often the case, the best guard against this tragedy would have been prevention, i.e., to take precautions against acquiring the blister in the first place. Today, although sepsis is still a major concern in certain hospital settings (e.g., post-operative areas and intensive care units), and although some antibiotic-resistant forms of Staph have emerged and are causing concern, we can be relatively free of the worry that we might succumb under the same unfortunate circumstances as the President’s beloved son.
Jared Rhoads is a health policy researcher and graduate student in public health at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. He lives in Lebanon, NH, with his wife and young son.
[i] Funk, et al. “Sepsis and Septic Shock: A History” Critical Care Clinics, 25:1, pp 83-101, January 2009
[ii] Schwartz, Thomas F. “A Death in the Family : Abraham Lincoln II ‘Jack’ (1873–1890)” For the People. Abraham Lincoln Association. 9:30, Autumn 2007
[iii] Rutkow, Ira. Seeking the Cure. Scribner, New York, 2010. p223
Did you know? Calvin Coolidge was the only U.S. president to be sworn in by his own father. In 1923, while visiting his childhood home in Vermont, Coolidge learned of President Warren Harding s death. As it was the middle of the night, Coolidge s father–a notary public–administered the oath by lamp light.
I think his younger son death lead to coolidge premature death.
No doubt about it. He said all the light went out of the White House when his son died. I also believe all plans for another term in 1928 also ended.
I was one of the very lucky ones — a foot infection in 1947 led to blood poisoning, which was able to be treated with the new drug – penicillin. First administered in a solution containing bee’s wax, I developed a severe allergic reaction – not to the penicillin but to the bee’s wax. They than found it in an aqueous vehicle and at 89 I’m still ticking away. Many thanks to the much maligned pharmaceutical industry.
Such fascinating facts and details about the president. Thanks for taking the time to write and share.
It is my feeling that in an era when adolescent boys frequently went barefoot all summer such infections must have been common. Doctors have always promoted a clean personal environment but this can undermine the body’s immunity system. Boys growing up with exposure to the outdoors would have had a far higher capacity for resisting infections. Both of the victims cited here were brought under wealthy rather than circumstances. Their lifestyle from birth afforded no opportunity to develop a healthy capacity for resisting the spread of infection. Wealthy Europeans have long sent their boys to spend summers with a peasant family and this prolonged annual exposure to the elements was observed to have a strengthening effect.
With respect !!!
I haven’t seen evidence to suggest that Calvin Jr was diabetic but I would suspect so. I am a foot doctor and have treated thousands of septic patients over the years whose sepsis originated in their feet – often through something as seemingly innocuous as a blister. Most of the patients were uncontrolled diabetics – but not all, by any means. Sepsis is still dangerous, but our medical knowledge today along with the wide-range of antibiotics make a death like Calvin Jr.’s a very rare occurrence. Thank God.
My favourite professor from Yale always said Coolege could not have any great joy after Cal Jr. died from septicimia. The Presidents MD could have used alcohol. Dr. Lister’s had proven the importance of anticeptic and the terrible death of Garfield by that idiot doctor probing introduced bacteria into his system. The light just went out of silent Cal and he went downhill quickly due to his grief of his namesake early death. He hated the sight of that tennis court.
It was my grandfather, Dr. John Kolmer, that attempted to save Calvin’s life in 1924. The treatment at that time was blood transfusion and high doses of mercurcromium. Unfortunately it didn’t work as my grandfather watched him die.
My mother, who was 14 when the boy died, used that tragedy to remind us to sanitize and bandage any blister. We got many on our feet, from even the best-fitting boots (the family hiked and climbed mountains). No infections– but thanks to doctors and pharma for antibiotics!
I am a physician. I have often used Calvin Jr.’s tragic death to explain sepsis, abscesses and cellulitis. I want to thank Patrick Kolmer for sharing his grandfather’s story and his grandfather, Dr. Kolmer for trying to save Calvin Jr. I also want to thank Alan Taplow for sharing his story. Alan, I hope you are still with us.
All of the above stories are fascinating although I knew about the president’s father swearing him in since boyhood as well as the tragedy since boyhood. I also knew that multiple doctors killed President Garfield, from my hometown of Cleveland, (actually Orange Township). I am a presidential junkie.
My brother Tom died in October, 2020 of sepsis contacted in ICU. I once spent eleven days in hospital fighting sepsis from an accidental dog bite. The dog was having a seizure, much intravenous antibiotics and two additional months of oral antibiotics. Still a very nasty disease.
I am 72 years old. At age 17 I caught chicken pox and developed pneumonia. I received round the clock penicillin injections which saved my life. I almost died from the virus anyway since penicillin could not stop the virus, but only the subsequent bacterial infection. Now there is a vaccine for chickenpox which was not available in 1967. I recently retired from my medical practice and in my last two years I frequently used my experience to stress to my patients the importance of getting vaccinated from COVID. I certainly learned from my experience the importance of vaccines.
Knowing what my parents went through when I very nearly died, it must have been devastating to the Coolidge to lose their 16 year old son.
Just visited J. Calvin Coolidge’s boyhood home in Plymouth, Vermont. The village has been preserved and the history is both inspiring and intriguing! I would encourage anyone who wants to learn about the Born and bred Vermonter who was a Massachusetts politician who came to prominence as the governor who dealt with a Boston Police Officer strike through common sense.
One really interesting thing I learned on the tour is that the Coolidge family men were named either John or Calvin for generations. In fact, our thirtieth president was John Calvin, and his father persisted in calling his son John, however our president went by his middle name Calvin.
In the same book in which Coolidge wrote that the power and glory of the presidency went with Calvin, Jr., he also wondered why God had exacted such a high price for him having attained the presidency. Religious superstition can have adverse mental health consequences. Penicillin would have taken of it today.