If Hillary Clinton is still unwell and proceeds to the Oval Office in November, she will not be its first incumbent suffering imperfect health. She will not even be the first newly-elected president with pneumonia, nor the first requiring antihistamines to control their allergies. HRC will be merely the latest in a very long line of US presidents who were much less healthy than they liked to let on.
You might not even recall the first US president with pneumonia, because it killed him so very rapidly. That was William Henry Harrison, who had difficulty adjusting to the hectic pace of the White House after his election in 1841. Just six days in he wrote: ‘I am so much harassed by the multitude that call upon me that I can give no proper attention to any business of my own.’ Poor Harrison never did find time to rest, and death from pneumonia brought his Presidency – the shortest ever – to an end after thirty days.
Secretary Clinton’s doctors will, no doubt, be prescribing more effective treatments than those President Harrison received (opium and leeches).
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