The President Has Died

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.”

~ Dr. Gabe Mirkin