I just completed my audiobook, DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC: A TALE OF MADNESS, MEDICINE, & MURDER OF A PRESIDENT, by Candice Millard. It’s an excellent read/listen of the events surrounding the shooting of President James A. Garfield. 

The book is an intersection of various individuals coming together: the 20th United States president, James A. Garfield; his assassin, Charles Guiteau,; renowned inventor, Alexander Graham Bell; leading Republican stalwart, Roscoe Conkling; and other well-known persons from this time. 

Even while being led to the gallows for his execution, Charles Guiteau claimed he did not kill President Garfield, but it was due to the poor handling of the physicians. The team of doctors, led by physician Doctor Willard Bliss, ignored the current leading evidence regarding infections and sterilization established by Dr. Joseph Lister. The doctors probed the wounds with bare, unsterilized hands and other objects. Dr. Bliss, who forced himself upon the scene, was accused by some leading voices of his malpractice in treating the wounded president, earning him the moniker, “Ignorance is Bliss,” a familiar quote coined by Thomas Gray in his 1742, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.”

It’s a quick, easy read/listen, and packed with fascinating history, and I give this book two thumbs up.