- NEW YORK (Reuters) - President
John F. Kennedy suffered from more ailments, was in far greater pain and
was taking many more medications than the public knew at the time, according
to new information from his medical records, The New York Times reported
on Sunday.
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- As president, he was famous for having a bad back. Since
his death, biographers have pieced together details of other illnesses,
including persistent digestive problems and Addison's disease, a life-threatening
lack of adrenal function.
-
- But newly disclosed medical files covering the last eight
years of Kennedy's life, including X-rays and prescription records, show
that he took painkillers, anti-anxiety agents, stimulants and sleeping
pills, as well as hormones to keep him alive, with extra doses in times
of stress, The Times reported.
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- The president sometimes took as many as eight medications
a day, says historian Robert Dallek, who is writing a biography, "An
Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963," to be published next
year.
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- He was allowed to examine the records over two days last
spring in the company of a physician, Jeffrey A. Kelman. Their findings
appear in the December issue of The Atlantic magazine and they discussed
them in interviews with The Times.
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- Despite his suffering, Kennedy's ailments did not incapacitate
him, Dallek concluded. He said that while Kennedy complained of grogginess,
detailed transcripts of tape-recorded conversations during the Cuban missile
crisis in 1962 and other times show the president as lucid and in firm
command.
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- By the time of the missile crisis, Kennedy was taking
antispasmodics to control colitis; antibiotics for a urinary tract infection;
and increased amounts of hydrocortisone and testosterone, along with salt
tablets, to control his adrenal insufficiency and boost his energy.
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- In December 1962, after Jacqueline Kennedy complained
that her husband seemed "depressed" from taking antihistamines
for food allergies, he took a prescribed anti-anxiety drug for two days.
At other times he took similar medications regularly.
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- The records show that Kennedy variously took codeine,
Demerol and methadone for pain; Ritalin a stimulant; meprobamate and librium
for anxiety; barbiturates for sleep; thyroid hormone; and injections of
a blood derivative, gamma globulin, presumably to combat infections.
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- In the White House, Kennedy received "seven to eight
injections of procaine in his back in the same sitting" before news
conferences and other events, Kelman said.
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- The president suffered pain from three fractured vertebrae
from osteoporosis.
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