The President Has Died
From eating raw fruit and iced milk
Or so the reports from Washington say.
Hard to believe a man so hale and hearty
Old Rough and Ready we called him
A hero of the Mexican–American War
And just over a year into his presidency
Would perish in just four days
After presiding over July 4th celebrations.
His personal physician blames cholera morbus
An infection of the small intestines
But some will always doubt and wonder
If his position on the slavery question
Inspired some murderous plot.
But now Millard Fillmore will be president.
~ July 9, 1850
“In 1850, the city of Washington had open sewers that contaminated the residents’ food and drinking water, to infect them with many different stool-born germs. Taylor’s doctors didn’t help him by giving him potentially lethal doses of ipecac, calmoel, opium, and quinine, and draining large amounts of blood from his body. Today, he could have been cured by taking antibiotics.”