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By Root 1844 0

and his prescription of vigorous massages exacerbated the problem.* FDR’s condition worsened daily. Soon his hands and arms were paralyzed as well as his legs. His fever soared, and he lost control of his bodily functions. For a short time his eyesight seemed threatened. Eleanor slept on a couch in Franklin’s room and with the help of Louis Howe managed to move him, bathe him, and turn him over at regular intervals. She administered catheters and enemas, massaged his legs, brushed his teeth, and waited on his every need. “It required a certain amount of skilled nursing,” Eleanor remembered, “and I was very thankful for every bit of training which Miss Spring [the children’s nurse] had given me.”9

Slowly, Roosevelt’s temperature subsided. He was still in constant pain, but the feeling of panic diminished. “I think he is getting back his grip and a better mental attitude,” Eleanor wrote Franklin’s half brother, Rosy, on August 18. “We thought yesterday he moved his toes on one foot a little better which is encouraging.”10

Dr. Keen, for his part, marveled at Eleanor’s devotion. “You have been a rare wife and have borne your heavy burden most bravely,” he wrote in late August. “You will surely break down if you do not have immediate relief. Even when the catheter has to be used your sleep must be broken at least once a night. I hope that by having his urine drawn the last thing at night, he will be able to wait until morning.”11

It was Louis Howe who first suspected Franklin had been misdiagnosed. A confirmed cynic and partial hypochondriac, Howe was skeptical of expert opinion in general and the medical profession in particular. He wrote detailed letters to Sara’s brother Frederic A. Delano (Uncle Fred), the head of the family in New York, describing Franklin’s symptoms and requesting that the information be relayed to orthopedic specialists for their opinion. Uncle Fred saw the point immediately. “All doctors seem to know Dr. Keen,” he wrote Eleanor. “He is a fine old chap, but he is a surgeon and not a connoisseur of this malady. I think it would be very unwise to trust his opinion.”12 After making soundings in New York, Uncle Fred went to Boston to consult “the great Dr. Lovett”—Dr. Robert Williamson Lovett, professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard and the nation’s leading authority on infantile paralysis.13 Lovett was summering in Newport, but his associates at the Harvard Infantile Paralysis Commission agreed that FDR’s symptoms were unquestionably those of infantile paralysis.

“On Uncle Fred’s urgent advice,” Eleanor wrote Rosy, “which I feel I must follow on Mama’s account, I have asked Dr. Keen to try to get Dr. Lovett here for a consultation to determine if it is I.P. or not. Dr. Keen thinks not but the treatment at this stage differs in one particular and no matter what it costs I feel and I am sure Mama would feel we must leave no stone unturned to accomplish the best results.”14*

Dr. Lovett arrived at Campobello August 25 and found Franklin paralyzed from the waist down, running a temperature of 100 degrees. His back muscles and arms were weak and the leg muscles even weaker. He could not sit up without assistance. Lovett pronounced the verdict crisply: It was “perfectly clear” that FDR had poliomyelitis.15

Eleanor was stunned. Were the children in any danger? she asked. Lovett thought not. If any were going to be ill, it would have happened already. As for Franklin, he ordered the massages discontinued immediately, believing that overtiring the weak muscles might damage them further. A complete recovery was possible, said Lovett. There was nothing to do but wait. “I told them frankly that no one could tell where they stood, that the case was evidently not of the severest type.… [I]t looked to me as if some of the important muscles might be on the edge where they could be influenced either way—toward recovery, or turn into completely paralyzed muscles.”16

Franklin appeared relieved to know the worst. “He looked very strained and very tired,” said Eleanor. “But he was completely calm. His reaction to any