The Slow Death of James Garfield

Shot by a Stalwart, though Murdered by His Doctors

May 7, 2008

Though his assassine was convicted of his murder, the true blame for the death of James Garfield has been shown to rest, in part, on his doctors themselves.

Between the time he was shot on a train platform by the insane Stalwart Charles Guiteau on July 2nd, 1881 and the time of his death on September 18 of that same year, James Garfield suffered intense pain, even as countless doctors attempted to cure his ailment.

By today's standards, such a wound as Garfield recieved would surely be very simple to repair. Modern surgery and x-rays would have very little trouble in finding the assassines bullet which had lodged itself in the President's spine near his lung and removing it with little problem.

Even if it had not been removed, however, it is not unquestionable that the President could have survived even with the bullet remaining inside of him, as had former President Andrew Jackson before him for many years.

The Initial Examination

The chain of events which surely led to Garfield's death begins at the train station itself at the time of the shooting. Doctors were quickly sent for and arrived, even as Garfield lay on the train platform in pain.

He was given morphine and, due to the fact that medical science had not gotten around to understanding the relationship between bacteria, germs and infections, the doctors began to probe the wound in the President's back with their unwashed fingers, searching for the bullet.

The President was taken back to the White House, where the examinations continued. Under newly invented Anaesthetic, the President could be put under, and the doctors could take their time in attempting surgery under unsanitary conditions.

Further Complications

As the doctors continued to examine the President under such conditions, continuing to have no success in finding the bullet or in removing it, all the while infections were forming in the wound, further complications were occurring.

One doctor, upon sticking his fingers into the bullet hole, had punctured Garfield's liver. This was not immediately life threatening, as the liver is able to heal itself, though it is now believed that this act allowed harmful bacteria into the President's bloodstream

Arguments between doctors on how best to treat the President even led to a fistfight, but this did not exactly help the case, which was growing worse by the day.

To find the bullet, even the famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell got into the act, inventing a metal detector specifically for this purpose - though this measure failed as a result of the metal frame of Garfield's bed causing a malfunction (which was not immediately recognized).

The End is Near

The infections grew far worse during the final month of the President's life. His face grew swollen (his eye even swelled completely shut), and his wound was filled with pus.

Doctors continued to try new techniques, including enemas of various chemical compounds, including whiskey and opium, but this didn't help. The President's health did nothing but deteriorate.

In the end, due to the oppressive heat wave in Washington that summer, the President instructed that he be transported to the New Jersey shore, but this didn't help. The President died of a massive heart attack on September 18th, and his assassine could finally be tried for his crimes (even though he claimed to have merely shot the President, while his death lay on the shoulders of his doctors - not a very effective defense).

Such a thing obviously would not happen today, fortunately, thanks to the acceptence of antisepctics and an understanding of germ theory which leads medical practitioners of the twenty-first century to perform all of their practices under very sanitary conditions.

It is difficult to truly place the blame for Garfield's death, actually. While it is easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say that the doctors were to blame, things were surely far different from their perspectives. Mistakes were made, to be sure, but the safest best is to continue to place the bulk of the blame on the assassine himself: Charles Guiteau.

The copyright of the article The Slow Death of James Garfield in American History is owned by Isaac M. McPhee. Permission to republish The Slow Death of James Garfield in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.