Medical Progress: Something We Can All Be Thankful For

I came across this tweet earlier today about the fate of the young son of a former president.

In 1924, Calvin Coolidge's 16-year-old son played tennis on the White House grounds without wearing socks. He got a blister, and a week later was dead from infection.

This is nearly unthinkable today — a result of astounding progress humankind has made over the past century. pic.twitter.com/qSDZ1MYUyU

— Ari Schulman (@AriSchulman) November 25, 2025

I confess I'd never heard this story before but it's true. Here's the account from the Coolidge Foundation website:

The general story is well-known: while playing lawn tennis with his brother on the White House grounds, sixteen-year-old Calvin, Jr. developed a blister atop the third toe of his right foot. Before long, the boy began to feel ill and ran a fever. Signs of a blood infection appeared, but despite doctors’ best efforts, young Calvin, Jr. was dead within a week.

The suddenness of this loss causes many to wonder about the  medical-historical context of his death.

The microorganism that took the President’s son was Staphylococcus aureus, a relatively common bacterium. On the skin, Staph can lead to minor irritations and infections. In the bloodstream, however, Staph can result in sepsis, a serious condition that can affect the major organs and be potentially fatal.

Deaths from sepsis unfortunately were quite common in Coolidge’s time. Ordinary wounds, accidents, and childbirth were all ways in which bacteria could get into one’s normally sterile blood.[i] Patients presenting with fever, low blood pressure, and an obvious site or cause of infection could be diagnosed with relative ease, but the treatment options available were minimal, and the mortality rates were high. Success with the application of antiseptic chemicals was mixed, with healthy tissue often being damaged in the attempt to control the infection.

The Coolidge case was not the first time that blood infection struck a Presidential family. In 1890, Abraham Lincoln’s only grandson, Abraham “Jack” Lincoln II, also 16 years old, died from a similar blood poisoning after a French surgeon performed a procedure to remove an abscess under his arm.[ii] Nine years before that, President Garfield famously died not from the assassin’s bullet that was lodged in his body, but from the infection that ensued after repeated unsanitary attempts to remove it. Antibiotics could have easily treated the infection that killed Calvin, Jr. But in 1924 Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was still four years away.

It's easy to take medical advances like penicillin for granted because most of us, myself included, grew up in a world where antibiotics were just a common thing, not a new arrival.

And the fact is that the pace of medical progress is probably faster now than it has ever been. The Washington Post has an editorial today about breakthroughs in gene therapy.

Huntington’s disease is one of the cruelest genetic afflictions a family can endure. The condition, which affects around 41,000 Americans, is the result of an error in a person’s DNA that causes their brain to deteriorate, typically starting in their 30s or 40s. Symptoms include dramatic personality changes, Alzheimer’s-like forgetfulness and an eventual breakdown of motor and speech skills...

A new treatment has shown remarkable promise in a clinical trial, slowing down symptoms by an average of 75 percent among patients who received it. The results, released in September and not yet peer reviewed, come with caveats: The trial in England consisted of just 29 patients, and long-term effects remain unclear. Still, scientists believe this might lead to therapies that can address the genetic glitch before someone becomes sick.

That is just one of many recent breakthroughs achieved in gene therapy. In May, a team of researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published a study detailing the successful treatment of an infant born with a rare and life-threatening genetic liver deficiency. The baby has since reduced the medications he needs to take, and his parents have been enjoying the thrill of watching his childhood milestones — eating solid foods and learning to walk.

It seems like lots of people, including a lot of celebrities are thrilled about the new weight loss drugs flooding the markets. They are so popular now that body positivity seems to have all but vanished. There aren't enough fat celebrities around to carry that particular flag.

But there are indications that some of those drugs might have other benefits which may be much more significant than losing weight. Earlier this month National Geographic had a story about treating chronic kidney disease, with new drugs like Ozempic.

Being on the verge of kidney failure means facing a future with two options: going on dialysis for the rest of your life or getting a transplant, for which the waiting lists can take years. Meanwhile, you remain at an extremely high risk of dying from heart attack or stroke...

That miracle came in the form of a clinical trial looking at the effects of tirzepatide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist that’s sold under the brand name Mounjaro, on chronic kidney disease.

During the trial, Palacios experienced a total transformation in his health and quality of life. His kidney function started to improve dramatically, to the point that he’s now classified as having Stage 3 kidney disease—meaning that if his condition is managed well, he can live a long and healthy life, without ever needing dialysis or a transplant...

At the American Society of Nephrology’s annual meeting in November, Tuttle presented promising preliminary data showing that patients treated with semaglutide—another GLP-1 receptor agonist, sold as Ozempic—showed a stabilization in damage to the kidneys, and in some cases, even a reversal like Palacios experienced. This included improvements in inflammation and scarring within the kidney, as well as improvements in overall function. 

These findings—and a slew of other advances—have ushered in a golden era of scientific research for chronic kidney disease, which affects an estimated 700 million people worldwide.

This has the potential to improve and extend life for 700 million people. It's something that will probably impact you or someone you know during your lifetime.

All of this is the result of very smart people doing hard work and, more recently, relying on some help from AI. Speaking as a person who has children, I'm really thankful we live in this world and not the one of 100 years ago when something as insignificant as a blister could become a death sentence for a child. The pace of these medical developments will continue to accelerate and that's good news for all of us.

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