US President Zachary Taylor
Can eating cherries and drinking milk lead to death? Gastroenteritis was no joke in the 19th century: not even for a wealthy US president.
Zachary Taylor was the 12th president of the USA. I ran the Independence Day, in the year 1850, and the festivities were proceeding normally.
Until the president decided to abuse cherries and milk. No, it’s not a strange alcoholic drink: we’re really talking about cherries and milk, products chosen for the festive atmosphere.
If I had opted for cakes and champagne, for example, products more likely to be consumed during celebrations, perhaps the case would have been different. But it is indeed a fact that the choice of cherries and milk That’s what left Zachary Taylor on the streets of bitterness.
He abused these two foods, and immediately became unwell. The party was ruined by vomiting and diarrhea. He even commented, as the “I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended in my death.”
And he seems to have predicted the future: 5 days later, the president of the USA, a former acclaimed general, died of gastroenteritis.
Some rumors still circulated for centuries that the food could be poisoned, and his death was a conspiracy. However, later analysis confirmed: the mixture of cherries and milk was what led to the president’s death.
But this is not the only one in the history of US presidents to have died a strange death. James Garfield, for example, was shot by an opponent and lived with an infected arm for two months. The famous George Washington was reportedly bled to suffocation due to a medical error.
Carolina Bastos Pereira, ZAP //
