LONDON — He might just be a footnote to history, but Dr. Isachar Zacharie is having a posthumous mini-moment, thanks to the Hollywood-sparked surge of interest in the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
Zacharie was buried in London’s famed Highgate Cemetery in 1900, but he is only being added to the cemetery guide Friday, joining such notables as communist philosopher Karl Marx and novelist George Eliot.
Zacharie’s claim to fame? He was Lincoln’s foot doctor.
“Dr. Zacharie has operated on my feet with great success, and considerable addition to my comfort,” the 16th president wrote in 1862, when the United States was gripped by civil war.
Historical accounts suggest that Zacharie fell out of favor with American politicians when he presented a bill for having treated thousands of Union soldiers during the Civil War.
