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Correspondence: When an article is eligible for submission of Correspondence, a link to the response form is available within the full-text article. You must be a current subscriber who has activated the online portion of your subscription in order to send a Correspondence. Any reader can read published Correspondence.
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Correspondence:Correspondence published:
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![[Read Correspondence]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Adam's Family Tremor
- Roger L Albin (17 May 2001)
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Author's reply
- Elan D Louis (17 May 2001)
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Roger L Albin, Professor of Neurology University of Michigan
Send Correspondence to journal:
ralbin{at}umich.edu Roger L Albin
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Dr. Louis is certainly correct that Sam Adams suffered from essential tremor (ET). It is worth mentioning that another prominent member of the Adams family exhibited ET. Sam Adams' cousin, John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, also had ET. J.Q. Adams survived into his eighties and was still serving in the House of Representatives at his death. In his later years, he developed a prominent tremor that interfered with his handwriting. J.Q. Adams was a dedicated diarist whose journal fills over 20 volumes of print. In his later years, he had to abandon his journal because tremor destroyed his penmanship. Some information about J.Q. Adams' tremor can be found in William Miller's excellent book, Arguing About Slavery, which is devoted to J.Q. Adams' role in the important gag- rule controversy, an effort by Southern politicians to limit congressional debate over slavery. Sam and J.Q. Adams are not the only important American political figures to suffer from ET. The notorious Joe McCarthy probably had essential tremor. One of his biographers, Richard Rovere, noted that McCarthy had a head tremor. In Senator McCarthy's case, ET may have had some interesting consequences for his life. McCarthy was probably an alcohol abuser who died of alcoholic hepatitis. While there is little evidence that ET is a general risk factor for alcoholism, it is easy to imagine a public figure whose career depends on public appearances drinking to suppress tremor. |
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Elan D Louis, Neurologist Columbia University
Send Correspondence to journal:
EDL2{at}Columbia.edu Elan D Louis
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I would like to thank Dr. Albin for his comments. Clearly there were multiple affected individuals in the Adams family, and a more intensive study of the family, their geneology, and their tremor would be of interest. Also, it would be interesting to examine handwriting samples belonging to different affected members of the family. The fact that John Quincy Adams had tremor would suggest his father, John Adams, also may have had some degree of tremor. This would suggest that there was variable expressivity in this family. |
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