General Grant: his physicians and his cancer

In early June 1884, seven years after leaving office as President of the United States, General Ulysses S. Grant was found to have carcinoma of the right tonsillar pillar. The General's physicians kept a detailed record of the course of their patient's disease. Speaking was quite painful for the patient, and his words and thoughts have been preserved on the scraps of paper on which he communicated to family, physicians, and friends. The diagnosis, symptomatic treatment, and inexorably progressive course of General Grant's mouth cancer taking place in an atmosphere of personal financial ruin are discussed in detail.