Credit: Library of Congress
This photograph–the first of a presidential inauguration at the Capitol–shows the large crowd that attended James Buchanan's inauguration, but does not show the new president's doctor sitting in the front row, ready to revive him with brandy and smelling salts should he have fainted. Buchanan was quite ill from dysentery, which he and others had contracted while staying at the National Hotel in Washington. Several, including Eskridge Lane, Buchanan's nephew and secretary, died of "National Hotel disease."
