The first half of this book offers a short biography of the little-remembered President, and the second half is made up of a detailed account of the shoddy medical care which he received after his shooting. This portion of the book incorporates a digression into the state-of-the-art of American medicine at the time, with emphases on the slow and grudging acceptance of Lister's sepsis discoveries, the absence of a nursing profession, and the rivalry between homeopaths and allopaths to become the prevailing approach for American clinicians. The author is hardly the first individual to state that physicians killed Garfield, not an assassin--indeed, assassin Chas. Guiteau said as much in his courtroom defense, but he does deploy some truly excruciating examples of poor practice to strengthen his case. Unfortunately, his antipathy toward the physicians in charge leads him into expressing a rather odd sympathy for homeopathy. A fascinating epilogue sketches the medical care and overnight stay in the hospital Garfield would have received had he been shot a century later when Dutch Reagan was shot. The book is unspectacular but consistently interesting and informative. ( )

This is a short biography. It's too bad it couldn't be one part of a three- or four-part biography.

James A. Garfield was very likely the smartest man ever to be President of the United States. He is the only President to have invented an independent proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. He spoke multiple languages -- one story says that he could write Greek and Latin simultaneously, one with each hand. When he was elected President, it was said that he was able to do all the jobs of his cabinet secretaries, so great was his understanding.

But he was not good at decisions. Some of his social interactions were odd. As a leader, he wasn't much.

Reading about him, I couldn't help but think that he really sounds as if he had Asperger's Syndrome. Both the brains and the oddities fit. So it would be nice to have a biography by a psychologist.

It would be nice to have a biography by a student of elections, too, to study his strange rise. And a biography by a military historian, who could look at his Civil War record.

But it's also nice to have this biography, which looks at his long, sad death at the hands of incompetent surgeons. If the rest of Garfield's biography is slighted in this short book, we certainly get a good look at how medicine was changing, and failing, in the late nineteenth century.

I enjoyed this book. But it left me wanting more. Garfield probably deserves more biographies than he has received. ( )

Rutkow's biography is less a biography than retelling of Garfield's near-assassination and subsequent medical mistreatment leading to his death. As such, it's not what I hoped for when I picked it up. The medical story was pretty interesting in it's own right, though.

It was a quick read, but not terribly informative about the subject at hand. Guardedly recommended for those interested in late 19th century American medicine. ( )

Ira Rutkow. James A. Garfield. New York: Times Books, 2006. 139 pp. $22.00.

Ira Rutkow is a clinical professor of surgery and the author of several books including Seeking the Cure: A History of Medicine in America and Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine.

James Garfield was America's 20th President for 200 days, 79 of which were spent dying of a gunshot wound. Thus, Garfield only functioned as the President for 121 days (the last of our 'born in a log cabin' presidents). Rutkow notes Garfield was "the most well-educated congressman of [his] era" and points out "he signed out more books and spent a greater amount of time [in the Library of Congress] than any other congressmen. Visitors to the house in Washington always remarked on the size of Garfield's study...Garfield always made certain that he had books with him when he traveled" (45). Yet, it is not true he could write Greek and Latin simultaneously.

This book is a brief biography of Garfield's life. By page 55 James has won the Republican nomination and by page 62 he and Chester Alan Arthur have won the 1880 presidential election, beating Winfield S. Hancock by less than 2,000 votes (the closest popular vote in American history). Less than ten pages later we first meet Charles Julius Guiteau, a mentally unstable self-educated lawyer seeking an appointment from Garfield.

Despite the fact Lincoln had been assassinated only sixteen years earlier, American presidents still had no bodyguards and security was generally not a major concern. Furthermore, newspapers printed the president's daily schedule (in 1963 JFK's Dallas route was printed). Likewise, White House doorkeepers unwittingly gave out information on the goings and comings of the president. Such lack of concern would result in the assassination of a second president.

Guiteau purchased a .44-caliber to carry out what he perceived to be the will of God. On June 12 Charles Guiteau followed James Garfield to the Disciples of Christ Church on Vermont Ave. There he plotted to kill the man who rejected him for the consulship in Paris.

While the first 81 pages focus on Garfield's journey into the White House, the last 58 focus on the shooting and the medical care (or lack thereof) of which Garfield received. Here, Ira Rutkow is at his best. The 55-year-old Doctor Willard Bliss is more the villian in this tragic tale. In fascinating detail Rutkow documents the consistently poor decision-making abilities of Bliss and his team. Bliss claimed, "If I can't save [Garfield], no one can" as infighting worsened between himself and his colleagues over what constituted proper treatment.

Rutkow ably explains in layman's terms how two medical worldviews were clashing in 1881. Unfortunately, Bliss did not put much value in the findings of Joseph Lister who claimed, in the mid-1860s, germs on wounds create deadly infections. Listerism is a system of sanitizing hands, instruments and skin. Numerous physicians stuck their unwashed fingers and uncleaned instruments into the back of the president. Furthermore, they believed pus was the sign of a healthy wound. The unfolding of the medical malpractice surrounding Garfield is jaw-dropping. Weaving historical 'firsts' into the plot only enhances the story's telling (I would love to divulge here, but do not want to spoil the fun).

The moral of the story: America's best doctors killed our nation's 20th president!

Unfortunately, the book has only one picture. Likewise, it is unfortunate the reader is never informed of what happened to Charles Guiteau--he was sentenced to death by hanging which occurred on June 30, 1882 in Washington D.C.

An enlightened reader,
A Ramey ( )

A brief overview of Garfield. There is some value to be found in the chapters on the state of medicine and surgery at this time in history. Otherwise, a disappointment. ( )