Jedediah Hyde Baxter In 1872, he was appointed Chief Medical Purveyor, and in 1874 he received promotion to colonel. In 1875, Baxter graduated from Columbian University (now George Washington University Law School) with an LL.B. degree. Baxter's duties as Chief Medical Purveyor included serving as personal physician to the President of the United States, and he attended James A. Garfield's family. Baxter was out of town when Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield in July 1881, and was not able to examine Garfield following the shooting. Garfield's other physicians prevented Baxter from seeing Garfield, which generated controversy both immediately after the shooting and after
Edward Charles Spitzka Hospital. He was a professor of nervous and mental diseases and of medical jurisprudence at the New York Post-Graduate Medical College from 1882 to 1887. In 1890, Spitzka served as President of the American Neurological Society. In 1883/1884, he served as President of the New York Neurological Society. Spitzka was the attending physician at the execution of William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890, the first execution using the new electric chair. In 1881, Spitzka was an expert witness at the trial of Charles J. Guiteau, who was accused of the assassination of United States President