The formidable self-made guy who reached the head of yank politics—only to be felled through an assassin's bullet and to die by the hands of his doctors

James A. Garfield used to be one of many Republican Party's top lighting fixtures within the years following the Civil conflict. Born in a log cabin, he rose to turn into a faculty president, Union military basic, and congressman—all by way of the age of thirty-two. Embodying the strive-and-succeed spirit that captured the mind's eye of american citizens in his time, he was once elected president in 1880. it truly is no shock that considered one of his biographers was once Horatio Alger.

Garfield's time period in place of work, besides the fact that, was once minimize tragically brief. simply 4 months into his presidency, a would-be murderer approached Garfield on the Washington, D.C., railroad station and fired a unmarried shot into his again. Garfield's undesirable success used to be to have his destiny positioned within the care of boastful physicians who didn't settle for the hot conception of antisepsis. Probing the wound with unwashed and infrequently manure-laden arms, Garfield's medical professionals brought poor infections and taken approximately his loss of life months later.

Ira Rutkow, a health practitioner and historian, bargains an insightful portrait of Garfield and an unsparing narrative of the scientific main issue that outlined and destroyed his presidency. For all his younger ambition, the one mark Garfield may make at the place of work will be one in all wasted promise.