By Roosevelt's inauguration on March 4, 1905, Hay's health was so bad that both his wife and his friend Henry Adams insisted on his going to Europe, where he could rest and get medical treatment. Presidential doctor Presley Rixey issued a statement that Hay was suffering from overwork, but in letters the secretary hinted his conviction that he did not have long to live. An eminent physician in Italy prescribed medicinal baths for Hay's heart condition, and he duly journeyed to Bad Nauheim, near Frankfurt, Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm II was among the monarchs who wrote to Hay asking him to visit, though he declined; Belgian King Leopold II succeeded in seeing him by showing up at his hotel, unannounced. Adams suggested that Hay retire while there was still enough life left in him to do so, and that Roosevelt would be delighted to act as his own Secretary of State. Hay jokingly wrote to sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens that "there is nothing the matter with me except old age, the Senate, and one or two other mortal maladies".