Trump's CRAZY. Meh...study finds half of US presidents upto 1974 were symptomatic
Trump's candidacy has made tele-diagnosing political figures fashionable once again, and this technique can be, and has been, applied to diagnosing even across remote periods of history. No doubt with risk for all the faults, weaknesses, and incredibility that might attend. Nonetheless... I give you:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201602/study-half-all-presidents-suffered-mental-illness
The actual study that's discussed was published in J Nerv Ment Dis you can find its abstract and a link to a download of the original at:
http://www.pubfacts.com/detail/16462555/Mental-illness-in-US-Presidents-between-1776-and-1974-a-review-of-biographical-sources
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According to a study by Jonathan Davidson of the Duke University Medical Center and colleagues, who reviewed biographical sources for the first 37 presidents (1776-1974), half of those men had been afflicted by mental illness—and 27% met those criteria while in office, something that could have clearly affected their ability to perform their jobs.
The authors of the study concluded that 24% percent of presidents met the diagnostic criteria for depression, including James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, and Calvin Coolidge. (Depression seemed to ease for the group about a century ago, coincidently, around the time electricity and indoor plumbing swept the nation. I’m not saying the two are connected but I have my suspicions.)
Davidson and his team also found evidence of anxiety disorders, ranging from social phobia to generalized anxiety disorder, among 8% of the presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Coolidge, and Woodrow Wilson.
More seriously, the team concluded that 8% of presidents had signs of bipolar disorder, Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Roosevelt among them. Indeed, Theodore Roosevelt’s decision to go on a two-year expedition of unexplored areas of the Amazon smacks of manic thinking. (Only 16 of the 19 expedition members survived the ordeal.)
Finally, 8% of the presidents studied exhibited evidence of alcohol abuse or dependence. Pierce died of cirrhosis of the liver; Grant was once allegedly so drunk he fell of his horse during a military parade in New Orleans; and Nixon was once unable to take a rather important phone call from the British Prime Minister because he was “loaded."
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