http://media.soundmedicine.org/segments/092213_4.mp3
According to Matthew Algeo, author of “The President Is a Sick Man,” President Grover Cleveland may have been the only president to have secret surgery aboard a yacht. After locating a bump of the roof of his mouth, Cleveland and some of the country’s best doctors sailed across Long Island Sound to conduct his surgery for oral cancer in secret. After the surgery, Cleveland wore a rubber prosthesis and never mentioned the event; even his vice president was kept in the dark. When E.J. Edwards, a journalist from Philadelphia, got wind of the story, he was trashed by the president’s office and his reputation was tarnished for the reminder of his career. Twenty-four years later, one of the physicians confessed and produced the preserved tumor as evidence of the risky operation. Cleveland’s tumor is on display for visitors at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.