George E. Goodfellow On July 2, 1881, President James Garfield was shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau. One bullet was thought later to have possibly lodged near his liver but could not be found. Standard medical practice at the time called for physicians to insert their unsterilized fingers into the wound to probe and locate the path of the bullet. Neither the germ theory nor Dr. Joseph Lister's technique for "antisepsis surgery" using dilute carbolic acid, which had been first demonstrated in 1865, much less surgically opening abdominal cavities to repair gunshot wounds, had not yet been accepted as standard practice by prevailing
Charles J. Guiteau and distraught after his final encounter with Blaine, he decided the only solution was to remove Garfield and elevate Vice President Chester A. Arthur, an acolyte of Senator Roscoe Conkling, the Stalwart leader who managed Grant's 1880 campaign and was not on friendly terms with Garfield. Guiteau felt that God told him to kill the president; he felt that such an act would be a "removal" as opposed to an assassination. He also felt that Garfield needed to be killed to rid the Republican Party of Blaine's influence. Borrowing $15 from George Maynard, a relative by marriage, Guiteau set out