IT WAS super secret. But last week in 1893, August 30, the Philadelphia Press had the scoop: President Grover Cleveland had secretly undergone surgery on a ship. And not just any surgery, it was cancer in his jaw. A piece of the jaw, five teeth and molars, and a lump in his palate – it had all been removed. The holes were filled with rubber. The official reading was that the president had gone boating for four days, but in reality on the East River off New York he had been operated on.
The operation was risky, on a swaying ship. Performed through the mouth, and not through the cheek. Done within an hour and a half, under anesthesia with laughing gas. A few weeks later, no one noticed. Cleveland’s big mustache hid a swelling, there were no visible scars, and the president sounded like he had a cold but otherwise normal.
It was a secret. The economy was down, Cleveland didn’t want turmoil in the market. Six doctors. Of them, dentist Ferdinand Hasbrouck was the one who pulled the teeth, he, the scion of the Haasbroek family, Huguenots who had come to live in Holland. He was darn proud of what he had done, and he couldn’t stand it that no one knew what kind of medical feat they had pulled off. And so the dentist revealed it to the journalist.
The president firmly denied. “Do I look like a patient, hm? Where are my scars?” Fake news. The newspaper was booed off. Grover Cleveland lived another 15 years in mostly fine health. Nine years after his death, another doctor revealed that the newspaper had been right.
