Edward Anthony Spitzka Spitzka performed post mortem examinations of the brains of many distinguished American men, including Prof. Edward Drinker Cope, Prof. Joseph Leidy, Prof. Harrison Allen, Dr. William Pepper, George Francis Train, and Major John Wesley Powell. Edward Anthony Spitzka Edward Anthony Spitzka (June 17, 1876 – September 4, 1922) was an American anatomist who autopsied (29 Oct 1901) the brain of Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of president William McKinley. (In 1881, his father Edward Charles Spitzka, a famous neurologist and medical specialist in mental diseases, testified to the insanity of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield, at Guiteau's
1880 United States presidential election for months, eventually declining to return either man to the Senate. Before that result was known, however, tragedy struck as Charles Guiteau, a mentally unstable man disappointed at being unable to secure a patronage appointment, shot Garfield on July 2, 1881. Garfield lingered for two-and-a-half months before dying on September 19, 1881. Vice President Chester A. Arthur, the New York Stalwart, was sworn in as president that night. Garfield's murder by a spoilsman inspired the nation to reform the civil service—and Arthur, erstwhile member of the Conkling machine, joined the cause. In 1883, a bipartisan majority in Congress passed the