![[GARFIELD, James A.] An archive of 23 hectograph memoranda and 3 telegrams issued by President Garfield's attending physicians, 7 July 1881 to 6 September 1881. Together 26 pages, 4to and 8vo, some chipping along edges of leaves, one telegram with separation in one corner. Together 26 items.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01685_0133_000(110643).jpg?w=1)
細節
[GARFIELD, James A.] An archive of 23 hectograph memoranda and 3 telegrams issued by President Garfield's attending physicians, 7 July 1881 to 6 September 1881. Together 26 pages, 4to and 8vo, some chipping along edges of leaves, one telegram with separation in one corner. Together 26 items.
A GRIM CHRONICLE OF GARFIELD'S SLIDE TOWARDS DEATH UNDER THE CARE OF HIS DOCTORS
Minutes after the shooting on 2 July, Dr. Smith Townsend arrived and noted the President's two wounds: a bullet graze on the right arm and a far more serious back wound. Once back at the White House, a team of six doctors took over: D. W. Bliss, J. K. Barnes, J. J. Woodward, Robert Reyburn, D. H. Agnew and F. H. Hamilton. They explored for the bullet, and in the process inserted unsterile fingers and metal probes into the wound, none of which located the bullet, but all of which introduced dangerous bacteria into Garfield's body. It was the beginning of a long pattern of medical blundering that would ultimately claim Garfield's life. All the while the doctors issued these progress reports (handwritten memoranda copied by a hectograph machine--a precursor of the mimeograph), and with the telegraph operator's notations of time of transmission entered below.
7 July: "The President has passed a most comfortable night and continues steadily to improve. He is cheerful and asks for additional food. Pulse 94; temperature 99.1; respiration 23." Yet six weeks later things are much worse: 22 August: "The President has not vomited since yesterday afternoon..." 24 August: "The President continues to take liquid food by the mouth...His temperature has risen slightly since [the last bulletin]; in other respects his condition is about the same..." By 26 August the doctors are reporting "some mental confusion" when Garfield first awakens in the morning, but this "disappeared when he was fully roused, and occasionally he mutters in his sleep." The reports also bear evidence of the extensive infections Garfield endured: 30 August: "At the morning dressing another small incision was made in the lower part of the swelling in the right side of the President's face, which was followed by a free discharge of healthy looking pus." 31 August: "the parotid swelling was found to be discharging freely." On 6 September Garfield told his doctors to get him out of the White House so he might recuperate at Elberon, New Jersey. The three telegrams chart his movement in a special train along the Baltimore and Potomac line: 6 September: "President doing splendid." But then a fatal pneumonia set in on 17 September. His last words were a pathetic plea to his chief of staff David G. Swaim: "Swaim, can't you stop this pain?" Together 26 items. (26)
A GRIM CHRONICLE OF GARFIELD'S SLIDE TOWARDS DEATH UNDER THE CARE OF HIS DOCTORS
Minutes after the shooting on 2 July, Dr. Smith Townsend arrived and noted the President's two wounds: a bullet graze on the right arm and a far more serious back wound. Once back at the White House, a team of six doctors took over: D. W. Bliss, J. K. Barnes, J. J. Woodward, Robert Reyburn, D. H. Agnew and F. H. Hamilton. They explored for the bullet, and in the process inserted unsterile fingers and metal probes into the wound, none of which located the bullet, but all of which introduced dangerous bacteria into Garfield's body. It was the beginning of a long pattern of medical blundering that would ultimately claim Garfield's life. All the while the doctors issued these progress reports (handwritten memoranda copied by a hectograph machine--a precursor of the mimeograph), and with the telegraph operator's notations of time of transmission entered below.
7 July: "The President has passed a most comfortable night and continues steadily to improve. He is cheerful and asks for additional food. Pulse 94; temperature 99.1; respiration 23." Yet six weeks later things are much worse: 22 August: "The President has not vomited since yesterday afternoon..." 24 August: "The President continues to take liquid food by the mouth...His temperature has risen slightly since [the last bulletin]; in other respects his condition is about the same..." By 26 August the doctors are reporting "some mental confusion" when Garfield first awakens in the morning, but this "disappeared when he was fully roused, and occasionally he mutters in his sleep." The reports also bear evidence of the extensive infections Garfield endured: 30 August: "At the morning dressing another small incision was made in the lower part of the swelling in the right side of the President's face, which was followed by a free discharge of healthy looking pus." 31 August: "the parotid swelling was found to be discharging freely." On 6 September Garfield told his doctors to get him out of the White House so he might recuperate at Elberon, New Jersey. The three telegrams chart his movement in a special train along the Baltimore and Potomac line: 6 September: "President doing splendid." But then a fatal pneumonia set in on 17 September. His last words were a pathetic plea to his chief of staff David G. Swaim: "Swaim, can't you stop this pain?" Together 26 items. (26)