Description
The biography of George Washington by future President Woodrow Wilson, inscribed to Dr. Sterling Ruffin, the president’s personal physician who oversaw his care after Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919.
Octavo, viii, 333pp. Green cloth, title stamped in gilt on spine, embossed crest on front cover. Complete with frontispiece portrait and 34 illustrated plates. Top edge gilt. Originally published in 1896, while Woodrow Wilson was a professor at Princeton.
Inscribed on the front free endpaper: “Dr. Sterling Ruffin, from his warm friend, Woodrow Wilson / Christmas 1921.”
An exceptional association copy, inscribed by President Wilson after recovering his writing abilities, following his stroke, with the help of the recipient, Dr. Ruffin.
Dr. Sterling Ruffin (1867-1949) was summoned to the White House on October 2, 1919, after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left his left side paralyzed. Ruffin was the personal physician of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson for many years and agreed to help keep the severity of President Wilson’s condition a secret. After Wilson left the White House, Ruffin attended to him in the final days of his life in 1924, being one of the last people to see him alive. Dr. Ruffin was the physician-in-chief of the George Washington University Hospital, practicing medicine in Washington, D.C. for more than 50 years.
