Robert Foster Kennedy Saves The Free World

From his Wikipedia Entry

Robert Foster Kennedy was the youngest of the children of William Archer Kennedy and Hessie Foster Dill. He was a first cousin of Sir Richard Dawson Bates, and a fourth cousin of Hetty Jane Owen. He became a neurologist, first in London and subsequently in New York.

In an illustrious career, he succeeded in giving his name to the Foster-Kennedy syndrome, the Kaplan-Kennedy test and Kennedy's Syndrome. He was one of the first doctors to define shell shock during the First World War when he was working in France near the front. According to his entry in the Dictionary of Ulster Biography, his direct experience of the war destroyed his religious faith.

He returned to New York after the war, and became Professor of Neurology at Cornell. Amongst his patients were one Winston Churchill who had managed to collide with a taxi on a visit to New York in 1931. Needless to say, Churchill came off worse than the taxi. The great tactician and strategist had overlooked the fact that the Americans drove on the opposite side to the British. It seems that Churchill was quite severely injured and shaken up. He now had a scalp wound, two cracked ribs and pleurisy as well as shock and depression to contend with. Nonetheless, he was out of hospital in a week, and in this era of prohibition had secured himself exactly the prescription he needed to recuperate in the form of a note that stated:

This is to certify that the post-accident concussion of Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times.

Churchill himself was aware that he had had a narrow escape and kept in contact with Kennedy right into the Second World War when he sought his opinion as to whether America would enter the war. 

For those fond of such scenarios, Churchill's accident and Kennedy's prompt treatment might just make for one of those great 'what if?' moments in history.

Kennedy also treated the US President, Franklin D Roosevelt.