Trauma surgery President Garfield was shot in the abdomen by Charles J. Guiteau. Two days later, a miner was shot outside Tombstone. On July 13, 1881, Goodfellow performed the first recorded laparotomy to treat the miner's gunshot wound. The man had a perforated small intestine, large intestine and bowel. Goodfellow sutured six holes in the man's organs. Similarly, President Garfield was thought later to have a bullet possibly lodged near his liver but it could not be found. Sixteen doctors attended to Garfield and most probed the wound with their fingers or dirty instruments. Unlike the President, the miner survived. Goodfellow treated
Charles J. Guiteau had been legally insane at the time of the shooting (because God had taken away his free will), he was not really medically insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between him and his defense lawyers. Edward Charles Spitzka, a leading alienist, testified as an expert witness. Spitzka had stated that it was clear "Guiteau is not only now insane, but that he was never anything else." While on the stand, Spitzka testified that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral monstrosity". Spitzka came to the conclusion that Guiteau had "the