Quiz: Can You Diagnose America’s Sickest Presidents?

Ail to the chief! Test your knowledge of presidential medical histories.

Mother Jones illustration. (Glove: AXL/Shutterstock; Washington: Wikimedia Commons)

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All in all, America’s presidents have been a sickly lot. Yet John Sotos, a California cardiologist who has spent more than a decade investigating and posthumously diagnosing their infirmities, from ague to Alzheimer’s, has found that a long medical history isn’t necessarily a barrier to making history. “The three best presidents we’ve had—Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt—were all visited by serious illness,” he says. “I wonder if there is something in that experience which humbles a man, and raises his decision-making to a higher plane.”

Ready to play doctor? Take this short quiz on some notable presidential afflictions.

Like this quiz? Wanna build your own? Check out our open-source quiz builder here!

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And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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