
Lincoln's Great Depression (2005) - poindontcare
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/lincolns-great-depression/304247/?single_page=true
======
lincoln_med
It is by no means clear that Lincoln had the illness that today carries the
name "depression." My 2008 book, _The Physical Lincoln_ discusses why, and
offers an alternate diagnosis that is holistically far superior to the
piecemeal mental and physical diagnoses that others have bestowed on him.

In brief, there is abundant evidence that Lincoln, his mother, and three of
his sons had a genetic disease called MEN2B that made them all tall, thin, and
unusual looking (exception: Willie Lincoln was not so unusual looking).
Features of MEN2B can mimic Marfan syndrome and depression, and this is what
happened in Lincoln and his mother: Owing to variant neuromuscular function
associated with MEN2B, they were physically constituted to look sad, because
their muscles (body and face) had low muscle tone as a result of MEN2B.

I don't think there is a chance in the world that Lincoln was depressed as
President, but Sheik's work has persuaded many people. I tackle all of Shenk's
points (and others) in the book. If you're interested enough to debate the
topic here, please read The Physical Lincoln first, and then write me -- so I
don't have to repeat myself. :-)

Please see:

[http://www.physical-lincoln.com](http://www.physical-lincoln.com)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22504423](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22504423)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19841386](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19841386)
[peripheral]

~~~
btown
Thanks for your response, Dr. Sotos, and welcome to HN!

Without diving into the book - it certainly seems from the Atlantic article
that Lincoln, on multiple occasions, exhibited suicidal tendencies. A primary
source is quoted as saying, "Still when by himself, [Lincoln] told me that he
was so overcome with mental depression, that he never dare carry a knife in
his pocket." Do you believe that the article is exaggerating these reports, or
otherwise putting them out of context? Regardless of whether Lincoln had
MEN2B, these quotes certainly indicate to me (as someone without medical
training, to be fair) that there remains a possibility that Lincoln separately
suffered from depression, and therefore give me pause when you say as a
medical professional that you "don't think there is a chance in the world that
Lincoln was depressed as President."

(For others interested in this research,
[http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071130/full/news.2007.226.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071130/full/news.2007.226.html)
goes into a bit more detail without requiring a full read of the book, which
is not available in electronic format.)

~~~
lincoln_med
Robert Wilson's knife quote did not describe Lincoln in the White House, but
in the 1830s, when Lincoln was in his 20s and trying to deal with debt, career
uncertainties, courting, deaths, and malaria. It was a hard hard decade for
him.

One clarification. Mr. Shenk is interested in idiopathic depression. It is
interesting that malaria was well-known among frontier dwellers to cause
terrible depression of spirits afterwards -- i.e. a secondary depression
caused by malaria itself. Lincoln was indeed low during his malarious period,
but this has no bearing on the question of whether he had idiopathic
depression, except that peri-malaria depression cannot be used as evidence for
idiopathic depression.

