Lincoln Had Smallpox: Al Qaeda Suspected

Will someone please explain to me how the hell anyone could prove this?

HOUSTON, May 17 - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln may have come closer than previously realized to dying from smallpox shortly after delivering his Gettysburg Address, medical researchers said on Thursday.

After giving the Civil War speech, Lincoln became ill with symptoms of smallpox: high fever, weakness, severe pain in the head and back, "prostration" -- an old-fashioned word for extreme fatigue - and skin eruptions that lasted for three weeks in late 1863.

Lincoln's doctors told the ailing president he suffered from a cold or a "bilious fever" before one physician told him he had a mild form of smallpox. (H/T - Reuters Life!)

I researched this topic extensively, and discovered that he was not our only President who suffered from a secret illness. For example . . .

Thomas Jefferson? He had Ear Whigs. Heh.

George Washington had tooth termites throughout the Revolutionary War.

John F. Kennedy came down with the clap just prior to The Cuban Missile Crisis.

Theodore Roosevelt suffered through hemorrhoids during The Battle of San Juan Hill. Why do you think they called him the "Rough Rider?"

And finally, Jimmy Carter was diagnosed with a vaginal yeast infection at the time of the Iran Hostage Crisis.