Not Taylor Swift

Zac Taylor is the coach of the Cincinnati Bengals football team. I'm sure I'm not the only football fan who wonders if he were named for the 12th president of the United States, and if the coach avoids cold milk and cherries.

What, now? President Zachary Taylor (1784 - 1850) spent his final Fourth of July on the land in Washington DC where the Washington Monument was to be built. He had only served 16 months at the time. Remember, sanitation and hygiene were primitive in those days, and maybe it would have been better if he had not gobbled a lot of cherries and cold milk on that scorching hot day.

Cholera, the killer disease borne by bacteria, was not uncommon at all in the 19th century, especially in hot weather in areas of poor sewage systems. What it was that caused the president to become ill is still in doubt. Perhaps it was cholera, perhaps gastroenteritis from all those acidic cherries mixed with milk. It might even have been food poisoning or typhoid fever that felled Taylor, a Mexican War hero, but his last four days were full of sickness (cramping, diarrhea, nausea and dehydration) and an agonizing death that his doctors attributed to cholera morbus, a bacterial infection of the small intestine.

Zachary Taylor

Millard Fillmore succeeded Taylor as president, and we can assume that he avoided dangerous foods. He was unable to secure his Whig party's nomination to run for president in 1852. His wife caught a cold at the 1853 inauguration of Franklin Pierce, who won that election, and died of pneumonia soon thereafter...and his only daughter died of cholera in 1854.

I'll have a happier story for you on Monday. Until then, watch what you eat!