One reason for Wilson’s stern, professorial image is that he rarely smiled in public or for photographs. This photograph is a rare exception to his rule, displaying serious gum disease and severely rotted teeth. These symptoms of periodontitis may be added to the growing number of possible causes of, or contributors to, Wilson’s strokes. Medical biographers have inferred from the evidence that Wilson suffered from hypertension, which modern medicine has linked to periodontitis.
Source photograph: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Date: 1918
One reason for Wilson’s stern, professorial image is that he rarely smiled in public or for photographs. This photograph is a rare exception to his rule, displaying serious gum disease and severely rotted teeth. These symptoms of periodontitis may be added to the growing number of possible causes of, or contributors to, Wilson’s strokes. Medical biographers have inferred from the evidence that Wilson suffered from hypertension, which modern medicine has linked to periodontitis.
Source photograph: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Date: 1918