Sometimes, the lesson that is hidden in a single clinical case allows construction of a hypothesis that can be tested subsequently by a planned research study of many persons. Ordinarily, knowledge of the details of a particular case history is limited, even among the medical profession, but in a prominent person — a president, a king or an engineer who takes his train through an open drawbridge — what would otherwise be regarded as a privileged communication becomes a matter of public knowledge. With these thoughts in mind selected features of the cases of two prominent persons are reviewed to . . .