The book last night was Destiny of the Republic: a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president by Candice Millard. The book tells the story of the assassination of President James A. Garfield by Charles Guiteau. But it is also the story of the politics of the times personified by Roscoe Conkling and also the medical battle to save the president’s life. Alexander Graham Bell is an important figure in the book as he desperately tries to perfect a device to locate the bullet in Garfield’s body. The state of American medicine at the time is also an issue, as no attempts to prevent infection were made by the president’s doctors even though the antisepsis techniques of the British surgeon Joseph Lister were available and becoming commonplace in Europe. In the end, it was the failure of his doctors to prevent infection that killed Garfield, not the assassin’s bullet. Our discussion was very interesting, covering the nature of insanity, the death penalty, living in fear, presidential security versus availability, violence in American society, changes in American life, the lack of civility and much more. Everyone participated and enjoyed the evening.
Our next book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough, will be discussed on Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 7:00 pm. The book is available at the Circulation Desk.
No comments:
Post a Comment