![]() ![]() We also see the efforts of Alexander Graham Bell to perfect a device to detect the bullet’s location (he would have had Bliss permitted him to search the left side of Garfield’s body.Īs she concludes the books she looks at the way Garfield’s death transformed American politics. Left alone, Garfield would probably have recovered. Willard Bliss, whose refusal to use the antiseptic procedures introduced by Joseph Lister and his repeated probing of Garfield’s wound introduced the infections that killed him. She interweaves her account of Garfield’s life and sufferings with the story of his insane assassin, Charles Guiteau, and his benighted physician, Dr. ![]() This is not a full biography but she sketches the outline of his literal rise from a log cabin boyhood and the early loss of his father, to his presidency of what later became Hiram College, to his political career (he never sought office, including the presidency) and his brief presidency and his fight against corrupt political patronage. Candace Millard’s account of Garfield’s life and death is that good. Because of this book, I hope to make that pilgrimage and learn more about a figure who may have been the greatest president Ohio produced, had he lived through his term. ![]() I didn’t and never visited his home when I lived in nearby Cleveland. Garfield is the president virtually no one knows. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard ![]()
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