Illness ravaged the Nixon family and deeply wounded young
Richard. Tuberculosis, an ancient scourge that antibiotics
finally conquered during Nixon’s adulthood … first touched
Richard when he was ten. An X-ray showed a shadow on his lung
that a local physician interpreted as possible tuberculosis. For
five years, the doctors forbade him to play sports, although
when the problem did not progress, they concluded that the
finding was a false alarm—likely a scar from a pneumonia that
Nixon had at age four. The X-ray technology of the day made such
misdiagnoses common. Richard was exposed to tuberculosis
throughout his childhood, so he probably did harbor some TB in
his chest; the germs often take up residence and lie dormant for
decades. Two years later, tuberculosis struck for real. Nixon’s
younger brother, seven-year-old Arthur, grew weak and feverish.
He stopped eating. As his health declined, a local physician,
Dr. H. P. Wilson, called in a specialist, who performed a spinal
tap—a procedure that involves inse