80 Days
On July 2, 1881 James Garfield walked into the Baltimore and Potomac train station and began the end of his life. A disgruntled lawyer and writer came from the shadows and shot him twice from behind, once in Garfield’s abdomen and once in his arm, his name was Charles Guiteau1. Although his attempt was not immediately successful, 80 grueling days later, Garfield would pass1. While Guiteau is guilty of shooting the president, some might argue that he is not entirely responsible for killing him.
After transporting the president to the second floor of the station, the president was transferred to the White House where he was under the primary care of the surgeon D. Willard Bliss as well as a handpicked team of other surgeons and doctors2. At this time Germ Theory or bacteriology was a new concept and wildly disregarded by doctors3. The surgeons inspected the wound with unwashed hands and dirty instruments. This would lead to an infection and later conditions such as jaundice3. The surgeons tried methods such as draining and numerous incisions, but it was to no avail, as the president was dying essentially of infection.
After 80 days, on September 19, 1881 Garfield died after living in misery for so long. We can see in the account of J.S. Ogilvie in his 1881 book, “The Life and Death of James A. Garfield,” that not only was the president suffering from a massive amount of bodily “pus,” but his respiratory rate, heart rate, and temperature were all through the roof4.
1Markel, Howard. 2016. “The Dirty, Painful Death of President James A. Garfield.” PBS NewsHour. Public Broadcast Network. September 16, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/dirty-painful-death-president-james-garfield. 2Ehrhardt Jr., John, and J. Patrick O’Leary. 2017. “‘Yes, I Shot the President, but His Physicians Killed Him.’ the Assassination of President James A. Garfield.” American College of Surgeons. https://www.facs.org/media/g1qn0eja/03_james_garfield.pdf.
3Mirsky, Steve. 2017. “Dirty Doctors Finished What an Assassin’s Bullet Started.” Scientific American. SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC. February 1, 2017. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dirty-doctors-finished-what-an-assassins-bullet-started/.
4John Stuart Ogilvie. 1881. The Life and Death of James A. Garfield from the Tow Path to the White House. New York: J.S. Ogilvie & Company. https://ia800907.us.archive.org/2/items/lifedeathofjames00ogiliala/lifedeathofjames00ogiliala.pdf.