POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis

Excerpt from Lincoln chapter:

According to Lincoln’s biographer, friend, and law partner for eighteen years, William Herndon, Lincoln told him that he had been infected with syphilis in Beardstown in 1835 or 1836. Herndon wrote to his co-author “Friend Weik” in January 1891, wishing that he had not put the confidence in writing:

When I was in Greencastle in 1887 I said to you that Lincoln had, when a mere boy, the syphilis, and now let me explain the matter in full, which I have never done before. About the year 1835-36 Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this and in a moment of folly I made a note of it in my mind and afterwards I transferred it, as it were, to a little memorandum book which I loaned to Lamon, not, as I should have done, erasing that note. About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up quarters with [Joshua] Speed; they became very intimate. At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him and, not wishing to trust our physicians, wrote a note to Doctor Drake, the latter part of which he would not let Speed see, not wishing Speed to know it. Speed said to me that Lincoln would not let him see a part of the note. Speed wrote to me a letter saying that he supposed L’s letter to Doctor Drake had reference to his, L’s crazy spell about the Ann Rutledge love affair, etc., and her death. You will find Speeds’ letter to me in our Life of Lincoln. The note to Doctor Drake in part had reference to his disease and not to his crazy spell as Speed supposes. The note spoken of in the memorandum book was a loose affair, and I never intended that the world should see or hear of it. I now wish and for years have wished that the note was blotted out or burned to ashes. I write this to you, fearing that at some future time the note—a loose thing as to date, place, and circumstances—will come to light and be misunderstood. Lincoln was a man of terribly strong passion, but was true as steel to his wife during his whole marriage life, as Judge Davis has said, saved many a woman, and it most emphatically true, as I know. I write this to you to explain the whole matter for the future if it should become necessary to do so. I deeply regret my part of the affair in every particular.

In a postscript, he adds that a Mrs. Dale saw the book and took note of its contents, and so he fears that the contents may come to light from that source.

Herndon tells us that Lincoln moved in with Speed in 1836-37 and, to repeat from the letter, “at this time I suppose that the disease hung to him [italics added] and, not wishing to trust our physicians, [he] wrote a note to Doctor Drake.” But there is an odd discrepancy in the Speed letter to Herndon published in the Life of Lincoln (completed in 1888—the year before the letter to Weik cited above) and dated 30 November 1866. Here Speed puts the date of the letter to Drake several years later:
Lincoln wrote a letter—a long one which he read to me—to Dr. Drake of Cincinnati, descriptive of his case. Its date would be in December 1840, or early in January 1841. I think that he must have informed Dr. Drake of his early love Miss Rutledge, as there was a part of the letter which he would not read . . . I remember Dr. Drake’s reply, which was, that he would not undertake to prescribe for him without a personal interview. Here Speed tells Herndon that Lincoln would not let him read part of the letter and guesses that he must have informed Drake of his early love for Ann Rutledge. He remembers Dr. Drake’s reply, that he could not prescribe medication without a personal interview.

The first reference to a contact with Dr. Drake in 1836-37 would have been within one or two years of the initial infection in Beardstown, thus in the highly infectious stage. The second reference, December 1840-January 1841, would have been four to five years after Beardstown, or well into the middle stage of disease. Hirschhorn, Feldman, and Greaves assign the Drake contact to the later date.