Tom Loyless

Tom W. Loyless (?? - 1925/6) is now best known as the managing owner of the Warm Springs spa resort (for which his financial backer was George Foster Peabody). He was also a newspaper reporter, editor and publisher, and was editor of the Macon Telegraph.

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After a young man suffering from polio discovered that the springs helped him, Loyless attracted the attention of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also suffered from polio, and brought him to Warm Springs. Roosevelt decided that Warm Springs could help polio victims, and he worked with Loyless on improvements to Warm Springs,

His role is portrayed in the 2005 movie Warm Springs, where he was played by Tim Blake Nelson. The movie gives the impression that he was no longer active in newspapers at the time of Roosevelt's visits, but in fact he was still involved, and convinced Roosevelt to help him out as guest editor.

Actually, Roosevelt probably did not have polio. Using Bayesian analysis, a study published in 2003 found that six of eight posterior probabilities favored a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune peripheral neuropathy) over poliomyelitis. ^[1]

References

1. ^ Goldman, AS et al, What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's paralytic illness?. J Med Biogr. 11: 232-240 (2003)