How Bad Science Killed A President

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When President Garfield was shot by an assassin in 1881, the best and brightest in medicine and science did everything they could to save him - and turned the President into a human guinea pig. But they missed something big, that could have saved him. To find out what it was, we spoke to surgeon and medical historian Dr Ira Rutkow, and Sara Murphy - collections manager at the National Museum of American History. To find out more about this story, read Dr Ira Rutkow’s book - James A. Garfield: The American Presidents Series. Check out the transcript, with all the citations here: http://bit.ly/33EMVl7 This episode was produced by Kaitlyn Sawrey with help from Wendy Zukerman, along with Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell, extra editing help from Caitlin Kenny. Fact checking by Michelle Harris. Mix and sound design by Peter Leonard. Music written by Emma Munger, Peter Leonard, and Bobby Lord. Thanks to the National Museum of American History, Dr Howard Markel, Prof. Charles Rosenburg and Candice Millard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zookerman and you're listening to Science Versus from Kimlet.
0:03.6	On today's show, it's Story Time.
0:08.9	We've Katelyn's Story. Hello.
0:10.9	Kady is the senior producer here at Science Versus.
0:19.0	And you've come to me with a story. I've come to you with a story.
0:22.8	Ooh, a tale. A tale of science, madness and murder.
0:27.8	Let's get into it. Okay, so I've got to take you back to 1881.
0:32.5	The Civil War, still fresh. The telephone has recently been invented.
0:38.2	And this guy, James Garfield, has just been elected president. This is how I want to introduce it.
0:45.0	That's my Washington DC. Wendy's famous mouth trumpet.
0:51.1	Do we like this Garfield Bella? What do you think of him?
0:53.7	We do like him, actually. Garfield was a general in the Union Army. He was very anti-slavery.
0:59.3	And he was a thoughtful guy. He liked to read. And fun nerd fact, you're going to love this.
1:04.7	He is the only president to have ever proved a math theorem. Well, right?
1:10.8	Garfield seemed destined for greatness. But he didn't get a chance to be great because he was
1:15.7	assassinated. So to get into this story, I've got to take you somewhere. I'm going to take you to
1:21.9	the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Oh, you have your own real museum.
1:29.1	I do. Oh, you didn't need the mouth trumpet. I understand. This is like a nerd string
1:33.7	getting to be in the museum before the pitiful turn up. Yeah, so we're going to go up this.
1:37.5	And to help us tell this story is Sarah Murphy. I am a collections manager in the Division
1:42.2	of Political and Military History. And I got talking to Sarah about the guy who shot President
1:48.1	Garfield. And the assassin's name was Charles Gato. He was a little mentally unbalanced.
	...

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