Charles Burleigh Purvis Charles Burleigh Purvis Charles Burleigh Purvis (April 14, 1842 – December 14, 1929) was a physician in Washington, D.C. He was among the founders of the medical school at Howard University. He was the first black physician to attend a sitting president when he attended President James Garfield after he was shot by an assassin in 1881, he was the first black physician to head a hospital under civilian authority when he was made surgeon-in-charge of the Freedmen's Hospital that same year. He was first black person to serve on the D. C. Board of Medical Examiners and the second
Charles J. Guiteau storage by the museum. Parts of Guiteau's brain remain on display in a jar at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton said in 1881 that he believed that Guiteau was sane when he assassinated Garfield. An autopsy of Guiteau's brain revealed that his dura mater was abnormally thick, suggesting he may have had neurosyphillis, a disease which causes mental instability; he could have contracted the disease from a prostitute. George Paulson, formerly the chair of neurology at Ohio State University, disputed the neurosyphillis diagnosis, arguing that Guiteau suffered from both schizophrenia and "grandiose narcissism". In 2014, the