Article ID: CBB000600715

Death of a President and His Assassin---Errors in Their Diagnosis and Autopsies (2006)

unapi

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Abram Garfield in the right flank. The President died because of infection produced by the unsterile fingers and probes repeatedly inserted into the wound. The major complaint of the wounded President was intractable pain in his legs and feet. This symptom failed to alert the doctors to the possibility of vertebral and spinal cord injury. Garfield died with sepsis after 80 days of intense national concern, and for the patient there was psychological, physical, and nutritional deprivation. His autopsy revealed the bullet was not in the pelvis as his doctors had expected, but adjacent to the first lumbar vertebra it had shattered. The trial and execution of Guiteau split the medical community into those that considered him insane and those who felt execution was justified. Guiteau was delusional and his brain revealed chronic inflammation and histological features suggestive of syphilis. At the time, and since, the propriety of the execution has been questioned.

...More

Description On the 1881 assassination attempt of President Garfield by Charles Guiteau. Discusses Garfield's wound and eventual death. Also discusses Guiteau's mental disorder and his execution.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000600715/

Similar Citations

Book Schain, Richard; (2001)
Legend of Nietzsche's Syphilis (/isis/citation/CBB000102046/)

Book Wrigley, Richard; Revill, George; (2000)
Pathologies of Travel (/isis/citation/CBB000110604/)

Book Wright, David; (2011)
Downs: The History of a Disability (/isis/citation/CBB001200871/)

Article Bernabeu-Mestre, J.; Cid Santos, A. P.; Esplugues Pellicer, J. X.; Galiana-Sánchez, M. E.; (2008)
Categorías diagnósticas y género: los ejemplos de la clorosis y la neurastenia en la medicina española contemporánea (1877--1936) (/isis/citation/CBB000931877/)

Article Elizabeth Nelson; (2019)
Confusion about confusion: Édouard Toulouse’s dementia test, 1905–20 (/isis/citation/CBB949181165/)

Article Stein, Claudia L'Engle; (2006)
The Meaning of Signs: Diagnosing the French Pox in Early Modern Augsburg (/isis/citation/CBB000830231/)

Article Tagarelli, Antonio; Piro, Anna; (2014)
On the Illness of Politian (Agnolo Ambrogini, 1454--1494): Syphilis At Its Identification in Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001421987/)

Book Hayden, Deborah; (2003)
Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis (/isis/citation/CBB000302022/)

Book Allan H. Ropper; Brian Burrell; (2019)
How the Brain Lost Its Mind: Sex, Hysteria, and the Riddle of Mental Illness (/isis/citation/CBB145052886/)

Article Espí Forcén, Carlos; Espí Forcén, Fernando; (2014)
Demonic Possessions and Mental Illness: Discussion of Selected Cases in Late Medieval Hagiographical Literature (/isis/citation/CBB001420431/)

Thesis Crouthamel, Jason; (2001)
Invisible Traumas: Psychological Wounds, World War I, and German Society, 1914--1945 (/isis/citation/CBB001562375/)

Book Noll, Richard; (2011)
American Madness: The Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox (/isis/citation/CBB001221216/)

Book Ghaemi, S. Nassir; (2013)
On Depression: Drugs, Diagnosis, and Despair in the Modern World (/isis/citation/CBB001553380/)

Book Claire Trenery; (2019)
Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England (/isis/citation/CBB164983917/)

Article Häfner, Heinz; Sommer, Felix; (2013)
The Bavarian Royal Drama of 1886 and the Misuse of Psychiatry: New Results (/isis/citation/CBB001320334/)

Article Roberts, Phillip; (2014)
El significado de “parálisis general del demente” en Victoria, Australia; 1886--1906 (/isis/citation/CBB001450516/)

Article Zorzanelli, Rafaela Teixeira; (2010)
Neurastenia (/isis/citation/CBB001420499/)

Authors & Contributors
Trenery, Claire
Priani, Egidio
Ropper, Allan H.
Nelson, Elizabeth
Tagarelli, Antonio
Piro, Anna
Concepts
Mental disorders and diseases
Diagnosis
Medicine
Syphilis
Psychiatry
Psychiatric hospitals
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
21st century
18th century
16th century
Places
Germany
England
United States
France
Europe
Scotland
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment