I Am Perhaps Dying by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9781940669892
Publisher: Savas Publishing
Published: 2018-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

11

Postmortem Review

What ultimately claimed the life of young LeRoy Wiley Gresham? Certainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis deserves a lion’s share of the blame. But LeRoy coexisted with his infection for more than eight years, and things didn’t really take a severe turn for the worst until the last two months, following General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Modern theories of disease postulate links between human psychology and physiology. Diseases such as cancer are now being studied through the lens of psychoimmunology. Researchers tell us that the persistent activation of the hormones of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in response to chronic stress or depression impairs the immune response and contributes to the development and progression of diseases such as cancer.1 Specifically, depression is known to enhance the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6) and to cause the down-regulation of cellular and humoral immune responses. Depressed and otherwise stressed individuals have slower and weaker immune responses to vaccines, are slower to develop immune responses to pathogens, have substantial delays in wound healing, and are at increased risk for wound infection after injury. In short, they show increased vulnerability to infectious disease and poorer recovery from infection.2

The parallel demise of LeRoy Gresham and the Confederate South has intrigued me since I first became familiar with the diary. LeRoy was a son of the South, and he identified closely with its destiny. Although, as an invalid, he could not fight its battles, he reveled in its victories from the sidelines, and bemoaned its defeats. When the cause seemed all but lost, he seemed to give up too, becoming clinically depressed. There is good reason to believe, based on our current theories of the workings of the human immune system that, with this psychological capitulation, there was a corresponding surrender in the physical struggle of his body against the microbial invaders.

Having conceded the field, it was only a matter of days before the Mycobacteria could claim LeRoy’s life as another trophy in their age-old contest with humanity.

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