Eugene O'Neill and Addison's Disease

EUGENE O'NEILL AND ADDISON'S DISEASE JAMES W. HAMILTON* On December 26, 1936, at the age of 48, Eugene O'Neill was hospitalized in Oakland, California, for investigation of lower abdominal pain, which culminated in his undergoing an appendectomy 3 days later, the pathology report citing acute catarrhal appendicitis. On admission to the hospital, O'Neill had also complained of urinary difficulties, such as burning and dribbling, of some duration, and was found to have a 2 + enlarged prostate. While still in hospital and having recovered from the surgery, he received a prostatic massage on January 12, 1937, and shortly thereafter developed a high fever, chills, and delirium that persisted for 4 days, during which time there was serious doubt whether he would survive. A lengthy convalescence ensued, and he remained in hospital until March 12. The year 1936 had been a difficult and hectic one for O'Neill. On being awarded the Nobel Prize, he wrote to his friend Kenneth Macgowan on November 15 from Seattle: Truth is, I'm worn out physically and badly need a complete rest. I worked on my damned cycle constandy every day for seven months without one day off— all through an extra scorching Georgia summer—and by the end of September I was a wreck and ready to feed the hookworms. Carlotta was also climate-sunk. So we've decided to sell the Sea Island Mansion and give Dixie back to Tin Pan Alley. And to look for a home in a more salubrious clime—once the Georgia one is sold. We came here for a complete climate change and a rest and for me to "get" the background of all this part of the country for use in cycle. But principally for a rest. And now comes the Nobel—and no chance of rest for a while, what with all plans up in the air. So it is not an unmixed blessing. In fact, so far, I'm like an ancient cab horse that has had a blue ribbon pinned on his tail—too physically weary to turn round and find out ifit's good to eat, or what. [1, p. 221] Thus, O'Neill was not in the best condition to withstand major surgery, entering hospital at 146 pounds, noticeably underweight for a man 5?1." *Address: 1601 North Tucson Boulevard, Suite 21, Tucson, Arizona 85716.© 1987 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 0031-5982/87/3002-0522$01 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 30,2 ¦ Winter 1987 \ 231 On leaving hospital, he settled in a hotel in San Francisco to await the completion of a house he and his wife were building near Danville. On March 30, he again wrote to Macgowan: This is to let you know I am at last out of the hospital—left about a week ago— and though still feeling in that convalescent state of general punkness, weakness and mental low Grade A, am at least out of the woods, though I still have to report twice weekly for treatments. It's a great temptation, which I shall nobly resist until I see you, to go at great length into all the details of my late two and a half months in hospital. Suffice it for the nonce that my operation was the cinch part of it, taken in itself, but it did act as a sort of final straw which weakened me and left me wide open for a lot of other stuff that had evidently only been waiting for the right moment to work on me—principally an interior abcess which burst and flooded my frame with poison so that I was off my nut for a few days and had the medicos worried. But "all's well" etc. and they tell me that if I watch my step and religiously rest for eight months to a year, I will feel better than I have in many a moon. [1, p. 234] However, O'Neill's health was to be problematic for the rest of his life, the years from 1937 to 1943 being especially troublesome. In a work diary that he kept during that period, there are...