Verdict: Recovered

Vacation-rested Dwight Eisenhower eased back into his White House routine last week only to find that the status of his health was still a lively topic of discussion. One of the first press-conference questions: Had cumulative illnesses forced him to reduce his work load by 25% (TIME, March 3)? Ike smiled at the question: "Well, I wish it were reduced, but--no, I don't think it has at all, and I never --this is the first time I even heard such a suggestion." Asked also: When would he undergo a second and final post-stroke neurological checkup, already a month overdue? Ike smiled again, admitted that he had been wondering the same thing himself. "I think maybe I should check up," he said. At week's end, having checked, he went to Walter Reed Hospital to take care of the tests and also get rid of a split upper left molar.

He had been bothered lately by the tooth's roughness. Before the President went on vacation, White House Dentist Lieut. Colonel James Fairchild checked and found the molar split. It was not painful, but there was danger of infection. Fairchild's decision: extraction. As a precaution against excessive bleeding, Ike was taken off the anticoagulant he gets six times a week as a part of his heart therapy. Armed with X rays, Colonel Robert B. Shira, head of Walter Reed's oral-surgery section, yanked the tooth, sent him on his way in 15 minutes.

Molar gone, Ike moved along to the hospital's main building, and the same third-floor VIP suite where he recovered 21 months ago from ileitis. Next morning appeared three of the neurologists who were called in after his stroke--Georgetown's Dr. Francis M. Forster, Columbia's Dr. H. Houston Merritt, and Walter Reed's Lieut. Colonel Roy E. Clausen Jr. They ordered an electroencephalogram and electrocardiogram, spent 65 minutes studying the results and checking their patient. Verdict at tests' end: the President was completely recovered from the stroke; the defect in his speech had disappeared. Thereupon Walter Reed's most famed patient drove back to the White House, faced a load of work that was piling up between diplomatic summits and economic valleys.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.