He carried a lethal dose of morphine with him for many years in case he had to take his own life.
He had it with him where ever he went as though it were his most prized possession.
The tiny glass vial was small enough to be packed into his satchel with his books and eight extra pairs of glasses and would also be inconspicuous in his luggage in between his other possessions.
He had taken the morphine with him on his travels to the American West, to Africa and finally, to Brazil in 1913, where he came extremely close to finally using it.
Roosevelt and a small group of men were on an expedition to the Brazilian River of Doubt. From the very beginning everything went horribly wrong and three months later Roosevelt was extremely ill with malaria and trapped at an impassable part of the river.
That was when he seriously considered ingesting the lethal dose of morphine.
Although he made it out of the Amazon alive, he never fully recovered and died only five years later.
