Fidelity and Deposit Company 1922 elections hyperesthesia polio Guillain–Barré syndrome Roosevelts Campobello Island
After the election, Roosevelt returned to New York City, where he practiced law and served as a vice president of the Fidelity and Deposit Company. He also sought to build support for a political comeback in the 1922 elections, but his career was derailed by illness. While the Roosevelts were vacationing at Campobello Island in August 1921, he fell ill. His main symptoms were fever; symmetric, ascending paralysis; facial paralysis; bowel and bladder dysfunction; numbness and hyperesthesia; and a descending pattern of recovery. Roosevelt was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down and was diagnosed with polio. Historians have noted a 2003 study strongly favoring a diagnosis of Guillain–Barré syndrome, but have continued to describe his paralysis according to the initial diagnosis.
