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Health and Medical History of President James GarfieldPresident #20: 1881-1881
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This style... | ... means the event occurred while President. |
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![]() writing |
Could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other.
1a
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![]() "ague" |
For six weeks when he was 15, Garfield drove horses along the narrow towpaths running beside
the Ohio canal network. After falling into the water for literally the 14th time, Garfield
developed fever, chills, exhaustion, and became bedridden for weeks. This illness was diagnosed
as an "ague," which was then a term applied generically to any malaria-like illness.
He was treated with large doses of calomel, a chloride of mercury with cathartic properties.
At that time it was the standard treatment for any fever.
2
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![]() bad cold |
Garfield had a bad cold in 1851 that was treated by a homeopathic practitioner, Alpheus Morrill,
with "cold cloths applied to the chest and infinitesimal doses of medicine."
2
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![]() anal fissure |
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![]() "weak stomach" |
Garfield had a "weak stomach" for years.
2
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![]() height & weight |
"Garfield was elected president at age 49. He was six feet in height and weighed 185 pounds,
and was characterized as 'very strong, atheletic and energetic."
2
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![]() assassination |
On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau fired two bullets from his Bulldog .44 at Garfield. One
caused a superficial arm wound. The other entered in the right posterior thorax, fractured
rib 11, traveled leftward and anteriorly into the L1 vertebral body, then lodged about 2.5
inches to the left of the spine, below the inferior border of the pancreas.
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![]() ![]() rectal feeding |
For some period after the shooting, Garfield was fed rectally
1c.
Comment:
It would be interesting to know if this was an innovation at the time and whether, due to absorptive
peculiarities of the rectum, this could have led to a deficiency state of any kind.
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![]() ![]() abdominal cramping |
After the shooting, Garfield was treated with high maintenance doses of quinine (5 to 10 grains
per day) and morphine (one-fourth grain daily), frequent sips of brandy, and a single dose
of calomel. Garfield had chronic abdominal symptoms during his convalescence. They were ascribed
to the calomel by one of the homeopathic practitioners attending him.
2
MORE
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![]() foot pain |
Pendel
5a
heard this from a White House steward, Mr. Crump, hours after Garfield died: He was always so cheerful and had so much nerve. Why, he used to astonish me with his jokes, even while he was suffering horribly. Suffer? I should say he did. The first week or ten days it was his feet. He kept saying, "Oh, my God! my feet feel as though there were millions of needles being run through them." I used to squeeze his feet and toes in both my hands, as hard as I possibly could, and that seemed the only relief he could get.Comment: This presumably relates to a post-shooting time. It is difficullt to know what to make of this symptom. It doesn't sound like gout (squeezing would be excruciating). Vascular or neurological causes seem most likely. |
![]() ![]() ![]() infarct |
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![]() ![]() malpractice |
At his trial, the assassin Guiteau admitted shooting the President, but denied killing him.
Instead, he claimed that Garfield's physicians killed him. Although Guiteau was executed because
his defense was not strong enough, he was probably correct.
Garfield's original wound was 3.5 inches long, and ended with the bullet lodged in a harmless
part of the abdomen. The wound was probed by the fingers of numerous physicians during the
rest of Garfield's life so that, by the time of his death, the wound track was 20 inches long
and oozing pus.
It seems reasonable that the terminal event in Garfield's life was a myocardial infarction.
However, the wound could have contributed to the terminal event in three ways, all of them
derived from the fact that Garfield was mightily infected for a period of 3 months:
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Before Presidency | During Presidency | Assassination | Shooting (First Day) | Shooting (in Washington) | Shooting (in New Jersey) | Post-mortem |
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Ampres Series
![]() ![]() 40 reviews
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![]() ![]() 1576 reviews
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Kansas Series
![]() ![]() 4 reviews
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Signature Series
![]() ![]() 0 reviews
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a p.56 b p.89 c p.85 d p.?? e p.125
Comment: LCC shelving code R703 B873 1966.
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![]() | Comment: Discusses the relationships of Garfield and Harding with homeopathy. Also reprints a Currier & Ives drawing of "The Death of General James A. Garfield, Twentieth President of the United States." |
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a pp.115-116
Comment: Pendel was door-keeper at the White House from the time of Lincoln to the time of Theodore Roosevelt. Full text is available on-line at loc.gov. It is a rather dry book, and reads as if it were written by an old man. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?lhbcbbib:1:./temp/~~ammem_rEou::
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a p.171
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