In anticipation of the observance of Presidents’ Day on Monday, Feb. 17, we’ll revisit some of the “behind-the-scenes occurrences” associated with U.S. presidents over time. Today’s focus is on James Garfield of Ohio, the 20th president, who began his term in 1881.
James Garfield married Lucretia “Crete” Rudolph in 1858. Together, they had seven children. Today, their former home in Mentor, Ohio, near Lake Erie, is a National Historic Site maintained by the National Park Service.
After serving less than four months as U.S. president, James A. Garfield (shown below) was attacked on July 2, 1881, while standing on the platform of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., waiting to board a train.
Charles J. Guiteau fired two shots from a revolver at short range that struck President Garfield in the back. Guiteau was mentally deranged; he reportedly believed he should have been awarded a diplomatic job in Paris, France, by the new Garfield administration.
Garfield’s wounds were serious but not immediately fatal. He languished for 80 days; his death occurred Sept. 18, 1881. Garfield died at age 49.
Medical sources now agree that Garfield could have, should have and would have recovered, had doctors known to follow “a present-day sanitary protocol.”
Dr. Howard Markel, professor of the history of medicine and a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (shown below), is a regular contributor to PBS NewsHour. He specializes in highlighting momentous events that have shaped modern medicine.
Garfield was the
second sitting U.S. president to perish following an assassination attack.
Gunmen also killed presidents Abraham Lincoln (1865), William McKinley (1901)
and John F. Kennedy (1963).
Garfield’s attending physician was Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss of Brutus, N.Y. (in the central part of the state near Weedsport.) He was given his first name of “Doctor” by his parents Obediah Bliss and Marilla Pool Bliss.
Dr. Bliss, an acquaintance of President Garfield, had been summoned to the White House by Robert Todd Lincoln (the eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln), who was serving as Garfield’s Secretary of War. (Lincoln recalled that Dr. Bliss was present during the treatment of his father in 1865.)
Dr. Bliss
Robert Todd Lincoln
Dr. Markel said: “President Garfield’s doctors stuck their fingers in Garfield’s wound and probed around, all for naught and without applying the numbing power of ether anesthetic.”
“In late 19th century America,” Dr. Markel said, “a key principle behind the probing was to remove the bullet; it was thought that leaving buckshot in a person’s body led to problems ranging from ‘morbid poisoning’ to nerve and organ damage.”
“Indeed, this was the same method the doctors pursued in 1865” after Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln in the back of the head” using a 44-caliber single-shot derringer pistol during a performance of the comedy “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Markel said physicians caring for President Garfield would “widen the three-inch deep wound into a 20-inch-long incision.”
“This…probably led to an overwhelming infection known as sepsis. It is a total body inflammatory response that almost always ends badly – the organs of the body simply quit working,” Dr. Markel noted.
In Europe, beginning in the late 1860s, British surgeon Sir Joseph Lister (shown below) encouraged fellow physicians to adopt “anti-sepsis” in their operating rooms. This technique required surgeons and nurses to thoroughly wash their hands and instruments in anti-septic chemicals before touching the patient.”
Dr. Lister’s contributions to clinical medicine earned him recognition as the “father of modern surgery.”
His work inspired Dr. Joseph Lawrence of St. Louis (shown below) to develop an alcohol-based formula for a surgical antiseptic and general germicide. He named his antiseptic “Listerine,” in honor of Dr. Lister.
Dr. Lawrence licensed his formula in 1881 (the same year that Garfield died) to St. Louis pharmacist Jordan Wheat Lambert (shown below), who subsequently started the Lambert Pharmacal Company, marketing Listerine. (Listerine brand products were promoted to dentists for oral care in 1895, with the first over-the-counter mouthwash sales occurring in 1914.)
Writing for the White House Historical Association in 2006, Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey, affirmed that “Garfield’s death was a turning point in the history of American medicine. His death spurred positive reforms, furthering the use of antiseptics and sterilization methods.”
Circumstances surrounding “Garfield’s death also helped raise awareness of the lack of trained nursing care in America, resulting in the development of national standards for American nursing schools during a forum held at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago,” added Freidel and Sidey.
To complete the circle, after Garfield’s death, Vice President Chester A. Arthur of Fairfield, Vt., became the 21st American president. He is shown below.
As a tribute to the Arthur presidency, Alexander McClure, editor of the Philadelphia Times, wrote: “No man ever entered the presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired…more generally respected.”
Alexander Graham Bell summoned to help save Garfield
Canadians expressed great pride in 1881 when inventor Alexander Graham Bell was asked to assist the medical team caring for U.S. President James Garfield, who was shot in the back during an attempted assassination in Washington, D.C.
Photo of Alexander Graham Bell as a young man.
Although Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Bell family moved to Canada in 1870, acquiring a farm near Brantford, Ontario, Canada, about 25 miles west of Hamilton. It is here in Brantford where Bell invented the telephone.
Bell’s concern for President Garfield’s recovery was documented by Andrew MacLean of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, who writes a syndicated newspaper column named Backyard History to share “forgotten stories from Atlantic Canada’s past.”
“After American President James Garfield was twice shot in the back at a train platform in Washington on July 2, 1881, Alexander Graham Bell tried to save Garfield’s life with a rudimentary prototype he was working on: the metal detector,” MacLean wrote.
President Garfield “was gravely wounded, bedridden and desperately ill.” MacLean said. “For months, newspapers published daily in-depth reports on Garfield’s health.”
“As Bell read the newspaper reports of the physicians’ treatment regimen, he was shocked and appalled. The search with a knife, probing among vital and sensitive tissues, could not be otherwise than painful and dangerous,” MacLean commented. “The thought naturally arose that science should be able to discover a less barbarous method.”
In 1876, Bell had patented the telephone. He established the Bell Telephone Company in 1977.
“While working on the telephone, he’d noticed that bringing metal objects toward his contraption made a sound in the receiver,” MacLean said.
By this time, Bell had also established homes and workshops in America – in the cities of Boston and Washington. Within only a few days, Bell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter (shown below) “managed to piece together a rudimentary metal detector,” MacLean wrote.
When bringing a leaden bullet near a small coil, a distinct ticking sound could be heard from the telephone.
Since Bell was at the crest of the wave of his fame, news of Bell’s metal detecting apparatus “attracted widespread media attention,” MacLean noted. “Theoretical experts were summoned from major universities like Harvard, and the enormous battery systems powering the Capitol building were put at Bell’s disposal as he tried to refine his device.”
“By July 22, 1881, the contraption was considered advanced enough to experiment on humans. Wounded American Civil War veterans who had bullets still inside of them volunteered. When testing on them, ‘a feeble sound’ was heard as the device passed over bullet wounds,” MacLean wrote.
Bell’s apparatus was carried to the White House, and President Garfield consented to undergo the noninvasive procedure on Aug. 1. Results were inconclusive, however.
Bell was perplexed, as Dr. Doctor Willard Bliss, the attending physician, refused to step aside. He instructed Bell where to run the coil in search of the bullet along the president’s left side.
Following Dr. Bliss’ directive, Bell was unable to find the bullet with his metal detector. Dr. Bliss responded by promptly dismissing Bell from Garfield’s bedside.
Writing for the New York Post in 2016, correspondent Larry Getlen reported that Dr. Bliss told the press of “Bell’s failure, and newspapers ‘excoriated Bell as a charlatan.’”
Getlen suggested that Dr. Bliss was intent upon sabotaging Bell’s scientific invention as well as Bell’s integrity as a scientist. But why? To shift the focus of blame…and to cover his own behind.
Familiar portrait of Alexander Graham Bell.
The late Fred Rosen, a former New York Times columnist and author, said Dr. Bliss had a history of malpractice violations. “He was excellent at using newspapers to promote his practice and bad at treating his patients. He was a con man.”
After Garfield finally passed away on Sept. 18, 1881, the autopsy showed that the bullet that killed the president was not lodged on the left side of his body (as Dr. Bliss had insisted). The bullet was found on Garfield’s right side (as Alexander Graham Bell had suspected).
The autopsy confirmed that the reason Bell’s invention didn’t detect the bullet inside Garfield was because it had not been placed anywhere near the bullet.
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