The untold neurological disease of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945)

Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945 aged 63 from a massive cerebral haemorrhage attributable to uncontrolled hypertension and atherosclerosis. Evidence from numerous reliable sources is presented, based largely on a constellation of previously unrecognized neurological symptoms including seizures, encephalopathy and hemianopia, supporting a scenario that, while indeed he suffered from severe cardiovascular disease, Roosevelt died from melanoma with the terminal event attributable to a metastatic lesion in the brain.