The disease that killed him

Ernie Davis suffered from acute monocytic leukemia.

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood-manufacturing tissues of bone marrow. White blood cells take over the bone marrow, making fewer clot-forming platelets. Red blood cells decrease, causing a lack of oxygen.

Today, only one in 100,000 patients develop that form of leukemia, and survival rates are low.

Early symptoms include fatigue, fever, abnormal bruising, swelling of the lymph nodes, joint pain and infections that don't seem to get better. From newspaper accounts, it appears Davis suffered from at least some of those symptoms. Swelling of the glands in his neck prompted a trainer to send him to the hospital.

Today, treatment for AML includes a combination of chemotherapy drugs, nutritional support and antibiotics. Sometimes, a patient receives blood transfusions because the doses of chemotherapy can be very toxic. In some cases, transplants of bone marrow or bone marrow stem cells are required.

The remission rate for adult patients is 70 to 80 percent. If left untreated, life expectancy is three to four months.

Chemotherapy was not very effective in the early 1960s, when Davis was stricken. And a bone marrow transplant would not have been an option.

Davis, treated by Dr. Austin S. Weisberger of Cleveland, received high doses of medication. In his final days, he was heavily sedated with morphine.