Mary todd lincoln mental illness
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Others have attributed her behavior to medical conditions and the drugs used to treat them.
Knowing that vitamin B12 deficiency can cause mouth pain, he began digging further into the first lady’s health history. In September 1875 she was discharged into the care of her sister Elizabeth in Springfield, Illinois.
Mary Todd Lincoln had always battled societal expectations surrounding women's behavior. She points out Mrs.
Lincoln’s enormous energy (not typical of sufferers of pernicious anemia, though the disease is progressive) and said that recently found letters suggest the first lady may have been taking too much chloral hydrate to help her sleep, which might explain some of her mental problems. Historians continue to argue whether Mary was a victim of disease, mental illness, an unhappy son, or the medical and legal systems of the time.
Ultimately, Mary Todd Lincoln's existence highlights the broader narrative of women's lives in the 19th century—navigating personal loss while grappling with societal judgments. She wrote letters to members of Congress and asked others to work on her behalf. Convinced that her son Robert was ill, she rushed to Chicago, where the healthy Robert began to question his mother’s mental health.
During her three-month stay there, she cooperated with the staff but wrote letters to friends to help with her release. For the next few years, she traveled in the United States and Canada and occasionally visited spiritualists in hopes of communicating with her lost loved ones. Her outbursts were seen as evidence of unrefined character rather than manifestations of deep sorrow.
A jury of twelve men ruled her insane and appointed Robert as conservator of her estate. A cardiologist and technology executive who served as a medical and technical consultant on the TV show “House M.D.,” Sotos was researching a book on Abraham Lincoln’s health when he came across a letter written in 1852, which mentions that Mary Lincoln was suffering from a sore mouth.
Her legacy serves as a tragic reminder of the societal pressures women faced, often amplifying their suffering into public ridicule. While Tad attended school, Mary traveled in Germany and France. Few serious cases of pernicious anemia occur today, as blood tests can diagnose the condition early on and doctors can treat it. Rather than evoking sympathy, her grief became fodder for mockery, reflecting the dangers of being a woman in the public eye during this tumultuous period in American history.
A deficiency can disrupt this process, affecting the brain, nervous system and other organs.