Alexander Hamilton is credited with the following quote: "We must make the most of those ills which cannot be avoided."
If you've got arthritis -- and 46 million people in the United States do -- arthritis is an ill which cannot be avoided. Unfortunately, if you or someone you love doesn't have arthritis, it's a itty bitty little benign-seeming pest that is all too easily avoided. Sure, we do our best to make the most of this ill: We take our medicines, and we keep ourselves active, and we take days off when we need to (nourishing ourselves on a diet of mutton and oranges, natch), and we make up funny arthritis jokes to keep ourselves laughing. But that doesn't mean we don't think of a day when arthritis is a curable disease.
If you think that arthritis ought to be an avoidable ill, or at least a curable one, you might want to throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit my secure website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton (the real one) holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Reason #4 Why Alexander Hamilton Hates Arthritis: Missin' Work
Arthritis flare-ups can keep you out of work. Just ask Alexander Hamilton, whose bouts with the pesky rheumatism had him in this state in the last months of 1777, when he was fighting in Washington's military, according to Ron Chernow's book on the man:
"The frantic rides up and down the Hudson damages Hamilton's always fragile health. On November 12, he wrote to Washington from New Windsor to explain his delay in returning: 'I have been detained here these two days by a fever and violent rheumatic pains throughout my body.' Despite his illness, Hamilton continued to direct the movement of troops slated to win Washington and went downriver to Peekskill to apply maximum pressure on Putnam's brigades. There, in late November, a haggard Hamilton climbed into bed at the home of Dennis Kennedy. It seemed uncertain whether he would recover. In a letter to Governer Clinton, Captain I. Gibbs wrote that he feared that the combined fevers and chills might prove mortal. On November 25, he reported that Hamilton 'seemed to have all the appearance of drawing nigh his last, being seized with a coldness in his extremities, and he remained so for a space of two hours, then survived.' On November 27, when the chill again invaded his legs from feet to knees, the attending physician thought he wouldn't last. However, 'he remained in this situation for near four hours, after which the fever abated very much and from that time he has been getting much better.' ...
Right before Christmas, Hamilton set out to rejoin Washington, only to collapse again near Morristown. He was taken back in a hired coach for further rest in Peekskill, where he was nourished on a hearty diet of mutton, oranges, potatoes, quail, and partridge. Not until January 20, 1778, did Hamilton rejoin his colleagues at winter quarters in Valley Forge, near Philadelphia ...'
Alexander Hamilton isn't alone in missing work because of the pain and debilitation of rheumatic disease: According to the Arthritis Foundation, arthritis costs the economy $128 billion. These costs include $81 billion in direct costs for expenses like physician visits and surgical interventions and $47 billion in indirect costs for missed work days.
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit my secure website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton (the real one) holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
"The frantic rides up and down the Hudson damages Hamilton's always fragile health. On November 12, he wrote to Washington from New Windsor to explain his delay in returning: 'I have been detained here these two days by a fever and violent rheumatic pains throughout my body.' Despite his illness, Hamilton continued to direct the movement of troops slated to win Washington and went downriver to Peekskill to apply maximum pressure on Putnam's brigades. There, in late November, a haggard Hamilton climbed into bed at the home of Dennis Kennedy. It seemed uncertain whether he would recover. In a letter to Governer Clinton, Captain I. Gibbs wrote that he feared that the combined fevers and chills might prove mortal. On November 25, he reported that Hamilton 'seemed to have all the appearance of drawing nigh his last, being seized with a coldness in his extremities, and he remained so for a space of two hours, then survived.' On November 27, when the chill again invaded his legs from feet to knees, the attending physician thought he wouldn't last. However, 'he remained in this situation for near four hours, after which the fever abated very much and from that time he has been getting much better.' ...
Right before Christmas, Hamilton set out to rejoin Washington, only to collapse again near Morristown. He was taken back in a hired coach for further rest in Peekskill, where he was nourished on a hearty diet of mutton, oranges, potatoes, quail, and partridge. Not until January 20, 1778, did Hamilton rejoin his colleagues at winter quarters in Valley Forge, near Philadelphia ...'
Alexander Hamilton isn't alone in missing work because of the pain and debilitation of rheumatic disease: According to the Arthritis Foundation, arthritis costs the economy $128 billion. These costs include $81 billion in direct costs for expenses like physician visits and surgical interventions and $47 billion in indirect costs for missed work days.
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit my secure website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton (the real one) holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Reason #3 why Alexander Hamilton Hates Arthritis
Because of Alexander Hamilton Stephens. OK, Alexander Hamilton Stephens isn't related to the hero of this blog tale, Alexander Hamilton. But before he was vice president of the Confederacy or governer of Georgia, the slight Alexander Hamilton Stephens, also known as "Little Aleck," was a congressman from Georgia whom Abe Lincoln (Barack Obama of olden days) once described as "a little, slim, pale-faced, consumptive man [who] just concluded the very best speech of an hour's length I ever heard."
According to www.civilwar.bluegrass.net, "Stephens suffered from angina, bladder stones, colitis, migraine headaches, pneumonia, pruritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and sciatica. Emphasizing with sufferers, he centered his official duties on aiding soldiers in hospitals and prisons."
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton Stephens does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit this website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton (the real one) holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
According to www.civilwar.bluegrass.net, "Stephens suffered from angina, bladder stones, colitis, migraine headaches, pneumonia, pruritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and sciatica. Emphasizing with sufferers, he centered his official duties on aiding soldiers in hospitals and prisons."
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton Stephens does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit this website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton (the real one) holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Reason #2 why Alexander Hamilton Hates Arthritis: Gout Ya Covered.
From "Like Charlemagne, You've Got Gout" (Timothy Gower, The New York Times, June 21, 2005):
"Dubbed 'the disease of kings and the king of diseases,' gout has long had the reputation as a condition primarily afflicting men who are well off. A short list of noted sufferers includes Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Henry VIII, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. ...
"Dubbed 'the disease of kings and the king of diseases,' gout has long had the reputation as a condition primarily afflicting men who are well off. A short list of noted sufferers includes Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Henry VIII, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. ...
Today, about 3.4 million men from all walks of life in the United States have the disease some patients call "gouch," making it the most common form of inflammatory arthritis among males. Men develop gout twice as often as women do.
Gout can produce mild pain, but patients often describe it as the worst physical anguish they have ever experienced. Untreated joints throb endlessly and become so tender that they explode with pain at the slightest touch ..."
If you hate gout as much as Alexander Hamilton and I do, visit this website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Reason #1 why Alexander Hamilton Hates Arthritis: Pullin' John Jay's Weight.
In 1787 he approached James Madison and John Jay to throw together a bunch of essays supporting ratification of the burgeoning U.S. Constitution. The triumvirate penned about 85 essays in less than six months -- with Hamilton contributing about 51 of those, Madison writing 29, and John Jay responsible for just five because of his "crippling arthritis." Sure, the Constitution was ratified, America was born, blah blah blah. But still. Arthritis slowed things down for John Jay -- and for freedom.
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit this website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Source for information about Alexander Hamilton: Andrew W. Robertson, author of 'The Language of Democracy' and coeditor of 'Beyond the Founders: New Perspectives in the Political History of the Early Republic.' Quoted from his review in The Riverdale Press online (02-21-08 edition) of Liberty's Blueprint, by Michael Meyerson.
Source for knowledge of long-dead Alexander Hamilton's feelings about various and sundry diseases: None.
If you hate arthritis as much as Alexander Hamilton does, throw a Hamilton-adorned 10-spot at the problem: Visit this website to make your contribution. Every $10 donation helps to assuage the bitter contempt Alexander Hamilton holds for rheumatological diseases, even from beyond the grave.
Source for information about Alexander Hamilton: Andrew W. Robertson, author of 'The Language of Democracy' and coeditor of 'Beyond the Founders: New Perspectives in the Political History of the Early Republic.' Quoted from his review in The Riverdale Press online (02-21-08 edition) of Liberty's Blueprint, by Michael Meyerson.
Source for knowledge of long-dead Alexander Hamilton's feelings about various and sundry diseases: None.
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