Was Abraham Lincoln treated for syphilis? Did those treatments cause his depression?

Question

David Herbert's biography of Lincoln raised that possibility. Gore Vidal treats it as fact in his'"fictional biography."

Answer 1

I have also read a fair among on Lincoln and have not come across any credible source that verifies this claim.  I would suggest you contact the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield IL.  I am sure a librarian could direct you to source material that would help address your question.

I hate to say it but it seems a book comes out every six months that makes one new claim or another about Mr. Lincoln.  The scholarship is a little weak, but the intent is to sell books not advance understanding.

Answer 2

There is a book titled;

POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis

http://www.poxhistory.com/work10.htm

http://www.poxhistory.com/work9.htm

According to Lincoln’s biographer, friend, and law partner for eighteen years, William Herndon, Lincoln told him that he had been infected with syphilis in Beardstown in 1835 or 1836. Herndon wrote to his co-author “Friend Weik” in January 1891, wishing that he had not put the confidence in writing:

When I was in Greencastle in 1887 I said to you that Lincoln had, when a mere boy, the syphilis, and now let me explain the matter in full, which I have never done before. About the year 1835-36 Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this and in a moment of folly I made a note of it in my mind and afterwards I transferred it, as it were, to a little memorandum book which I loaned to Lamon, not, as I should have done, erasing that note. About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up quarters with [Joshua] Speed; they became very intimate.

At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him and, not wishing to trust our physicians, wrote a note to Doctor Drake, the latter part of which he would not let Speed see, not wishing Speed to know it. Speed said to me that Lincoln would not let him see a part of the note. Speed wrote to me a letter saying that he supposed L’s letter to Doctor Drake had reference to his, L’s crazy spell about the Ann Rutledge love affair, etc., and her death. You will find Speeds’ letter to me in our Life of Lincoln. The note to Doctor Drake in part had reference to his disease and not to his crazy spell as Speed supposes.

The first reference to a contact with Dr. Drake in 1836-37 would have been within one or two years of the initial infection in Beardstown, thus in the highly infectious stage. The second reference, December 1840-January 1841, would have been four to five years after Beardstown, or well into the middle stage of disease. Hirschhorn, Feldman, and Greaves assign the Drake contact to the later date.

Syphilis was suggested in Mary Todd’s medical history when Norbert Hirschhorn and Robert Feldman published an article in 1999 reviewing the work of the four doctors who had diagnosed her progressive spinal trouble. Finding a clear case of tabes dorsalis, Hirschhorn and Feldman argue convincingly that the doctors would have known very well by then that tabes was caused by syphilis in the majority of cases and would have opted to save her reputation (and to assure a benefit that might have been withheld by a censorious Congress) by stating that her tabes dorsalis was caused by an injury to her spine when she fell from the French chair.

“Given the widespread medical knowledge about tabes dorsalis at the close of 1881 and what then was considered its most likely cause [syphilis], it was inevitable that the four physicians chose the least pejorative diagnosis, however marginally acceptable it was to progressive medical opinion.” Jonathan Hutchinson concluded that it was generally accepted that tabes occurs “almost solely” in those who have previously suffered from syphilis. P.J. Möbius went one step further: “The longer I reflect upon it, the more firmly I believe that tabes never originates without syphilis.”

Answer 3

I've read extensively on Lincoln and have heard of the possibility of his having had syphilis.  What treatment did he get that could have caused his depression, though?  I'm not sure how they treated syphilis then, assuming he even had it.  There's no doubt he suffered from depression; it's also possible he was bipolar.  

There's so much speculation about every aspect of Lincoln's life.  One book suggested he was g*y, or at least bisexual.  The evidence was pretty flimsy.  

As for your question, I guess I just don't know, and I'm not sure it matters.  I personally think Lincoln's depression came from his great intellect and ability to think deeply.  It's hard not to get depressed if  you do that.