James Garfield

James Garfield, by Ira Rutkow, Henry Holt, New York, 2006.

It is President Garfield's unique tragedy that he should be remembered more for his dying than for his living. This biography does little to change that legacy. Half of the pages are devoted to his final days of suffering. But could we expect less from an author who is also a clinical professor of surgery?

This a book for anyone interested in the presidential history of that neglected period known as the Gilded Age. The ins and outs of Republican Bossism; the emblematic American saga of a boy born in a log cabin who educates himself and rises to Union army general, congressman, and finally, president--these subjects are meat enough for any book. But perhaps most gripping is the detailed accounting of the ideological battle Garfield's physicians wage over his festering wound. From the day he is shot til the day he dies they dispute one central question: is there such as thing as a germ, and why should we care?

It is Garfield's unique tragedy that he should be best remembered as a case study of a turning point in medical history. His life depended on who won out: the medieval old guard or the followers of Jenner. Unfortunately for him, it was the old guard.