Washington, DC is a city built on a swamp. As the city slowly limped into modernity, utilities such as plumbing were slow to develop. Poor sewage drainage contaminated drinking water, imperiling the lives of several U.S. Presidents & their families.

• Inaugural Address Length | Presidents of the United States (POTUS)
• Historic Meanings of “Cholera” – Contagions
• Polk, Exhausted, Says He's Feeling Better Now That He's Out of Office, Then Dies a Month Later - May 9, 1849
• Typhoid Fever and Paratyphoid Fever | CDC
• "Death in the White House: President William Henry Harrison's Atypical Pneumonia" | Death in the White House: President William Henry Harrison's Atypical Pneumonia Jane McHugh, Philip A. Mackowiak Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 59, Issue 7, 1 October 2014, Pages 990–995
• "Attack of the Killer White House – Did the White House itself lead to the death of several 19th century Presidents?" — History is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books | Modern International and American history
• The Death of James K. Polk - James K. Polk Museum. Columbia, TN
• Zachary Taylor: Death of the President | Miller Center
• "Age at Inauguration" | Presidents of the United States (POTUS)
• "Killer in the White House" | The Saturday Evening Post by Chris Wakefield and Troy Brownfield, April 23, 2019
• Looking Back: “The insidious foe”—sewer gas - PMC
• "What Really Killed William Henry Harrison?" By Jane McHugh and Philip A. Mackowiak New York Times March 31, 2014

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Artwork: Brittany Schall

Music: "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saens, performed by Kevin MacLeod