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
Charles J. Guiteau probing the wound with unwashed hands and non-sterilized instruments, Garfield died on September 19, eleven weeks after being shot. Most modern physicians familiar with the case state that Garfield would have easily recovered from his wounds with sterile medical care, which was common in the United States a decade later, while Candice Millard argues that Garfield would have survived Guiteau's bullet wound had his doctors simply left him alone. However, Garfield's biographer Allan Peskin stated that medical malpractice did not contribute to Garfield's death; the inevitable infection and blood poisoning that would ensue from a deep bullet wound resulted in