Crafting medical history: revisiting the "definitive" account of Franklin D. Roosevelt's terminal illness.

Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168th Street, Room 938, New York, NY 10032, USA. BHL5@columbia.edu

While revisionist historians have challenged many standard interpretations of events in the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, one account has remained virtually unscathed: an article about Roosevelt's terminal illness and death written by one of his physicians, Howard G. Bruenn. Yet this article, like all historical documents, was not "objective" but rather a reflection of social and political forces--both from the 1940s, when Roosevelt became ill, and from 1970, when Bruenn's piece was published. This essay argues that Bruenn, the Roosevelt family, and the historian James MacGregor Burns worked together to craft a document that told the story of Roosevelt's decline with a predictable trajectory.

Personal Name as Subject:

Roosevelt FD

PMID: 17844721 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]